The Gaza Freedom March in Cairo-A Firsthand Account

Hilary Minch*, an Irish woman who took part in the ‘Gaza Freedom March’ has written an account of her trip for Politico.ie, telling of the “incredible array of people, united in a refusal to be silent”.

Why we Marched 

The Gaza Freedom March aimed to highlight and demand an end to the illegal siege of the men, women and children of Gaza by Israel. The March was a Palestinian and global citizen’s initiative to halt Israel and it’s US, Egyptian and EU allies in their draconian blockade, the collective punishment of a civilian population, the inefficacy of international human rights and humanitarian law. 

The Gaza Freedom March also aimed to march in solidarity with the residents of Gaza on a mile long walk of remembrance on 31 December, commemorating the 1,400 men, women and children killed by Israel’s Operation Cast Lead.

End the Siege on Gaza

The Egyptian government tried to crush the Gaza Freedom March, presumably under from Israel and the US. Days before 1,400 civilians from 43 countries arrived in Cairo to assemble for the Gaza Freedom March, the Egyptian Government announced that the march could not go ahead and that we would not be allowed travel to Gaza through Egypt’s Rafah crossing. In response to international pressure, including a letter from the Irish Ministry of Defence, by Christmas Eve this position was overturned and it seemed that there would be access to Gaza. 

Feluccas disappear from the Nile

On arrival in Cairo in the small hours of Sunday 27th December, a heavy fog clung to the city, draped over the Nile, a great, grey blanket. By lunchtime, the sun had broken through and the extent of the Egyptian clampdown on the Gaza Freedom March began to emerge. A permit for the orientation meeting for the 1,400 delegates at the Jesuit School, Le College de la Sainte Famille, was revoked. The permits for the buses that would take us to Gaza were cancelled – all bus companies instructed not to transport us. A dignified action to display the names of those killed in Gaza by Israel’s Operation Cast Lead on small pieces of paper across one of Cairo’s main bridges were quickly torn up and tossed away by Egyptian police. A planned event on board feluccas, where we would light candles to commemorate the 1,400 people killed in Gaza, was stopped – all felucca boat owners in Cairo ordered by Egyptian police to stay off the river and the Nile mysteriously was without boats as the sun went down. At first we assumed there must be a VIP in town – every street corner thronged with armed police, paddy wagons and riot squads waited in side roads, plainclothes security milled around, quickly surrounding and dispersing any small groups who lingered too long.  We lit our candles anyway, a few hundred people, and remembered the men, women and children of Gaza whose lives were destroyed by Operation Cast Lead, exactly a year ago, 27 December, 2008. 

Detention by Egyptian Authorities

In a bid to try and reach Rafah by other means, the Irish Delegation decided to travel as inconspicuous tourists on a public bus through the Sinai Desert to al-Arish, a small port town, 30 km from Rafah. At the Mubarak Peace Bridge over the Suez Canal, the bus was stopped at a checkpoint. All foreigners were forced to leave the bus and passports were confiscated. The Egyptians on the bus apologised to us and wished us well. We were then transported under armed police escort back to Cairo and told that we would not be able to travel anywhere close to Rafah. Finally after hours of travelling with the police and stopping at every checkpoint, our passports were returned. Although we had been well treated, we were under no illusion that the Egyptian authorities were in complete control of all movement of foreigners. Others who had already made it to al-Arish were placed under ‘hotel arrest’ there, and refused permission to travel towards Rafah. The Ministry of Interior finally issued a formal directive banning all non-Egyptians from travelling east of the Suez Canal.  

Diplomatic Pressure

While the Irish and others tried to get to al-Arish, negotiations continued with the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for permits to enter Gaza. Other avenues were being explored too – Philippine MP Walden Bello met UN officials but to no avail. Outside the negotiations at the World Trade Centre building where the UN offices were, nearly a thousand demonstrators gathered and witnessed 85 year old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein announce her hunger strike: “I have come to a point in my life in regard to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, especially the Gaza issue, where I need to do something else because what I have done so far has not really caught the attention of my own government or the governments of the world who are silent on this issue. And so I’ve decided to go on hunger strike.” 

(Picture: 85 year old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein- centre)

The following day, 29 December, all delegations approached their embassies, to request their intervention to pressurise Egypt into allowing us travel to Gaza. All received the standard, polite, bland, diplomatic response. Meanwhile, the French had taken over the French Embassy – hundreds of them surrounded the Embassy in tents and sleeping bags, protesting against French government complicity in the siege of Gaza. Throughout the week, the French raised the bar in terms of international solidarity campaigning. So well organised were they, that had chartered a plane for the 300 strong delegation, and managed to drape a Palestinian flag on Giza’s Great Pyramid.

Mrs. Mubarak’s intervention

As darkness fell, hundreds gathered at the invitation of Syndicate of Journalists to join their members at the trade union headquarters for a rally for Gaza and to protest against the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.  Then we received the news that 100 people could go to Gaza. An approach had been made to Suzanne Mubarak, wife of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, in her capacity as chairwoman of the Egyptian Red Crescent. A small humanitarian delegation would be allowed to travel, departing at 7am, on the morning of 30 December,  but a list of names would have to be submitted within two hours... Countries huddled together excitedly discussing the implications, the most appropriate tactics. Ireland tossed a coin…

By morning, most countries had made the decision to boycott the buses and the token gesture by the Egyptian Government. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abdoul Gheit issued a  public statement deriding the Gaza Freedom Marchers. We felt the statement attempted to drive a wedge and break the unity and solidarity of the international delegates. It falsely described how 100 people had been handpicked as ‘good and sincere’ and threatened that the remaining 1,300 Gaza Freedom Marchers were ‘hooligans’ who would be dealt with on the streets. The Gaza Freedom March organisers admitted they had made a mistake in accepting the Mubarak deal and appealed for people not to travel. Yet many still felt that it was better that 100 people go and march with the people of Gaza than none at all. A heated standoff ensued, with angry exchanges between marchers. Riot police and hundreds of plain clothes police moved in and erected barriers. Finally, there was word from Gaza. On the phone, Heider Eid and Omar Bhargouti, two of the Gaza Freedom March organisers in Gaza, spoke to the delegations on the buses – “do not come to Gaza. Boycott the Mubarak deal. This is not the solidarity we want”.

Later that day, a bus did travel to Gaza with a collection of 83 individuals who had made their personal decision to still travel to Gaza. Many on the bus were Palestinians returning to visit relatives. Others had small amounts of humanitarian supplies, while a few were just individuals who had only ever been interested in going to Gaza under the Freedom March banner as a way to enter the besieged enclave.

Free Gaza Square

Late night plans for the Gaza Freedom March were hatched and disseminated in cafes around Cairo. Leaflets were distributed with emergency phone numbers in case of arrest, rights and entitlements under Egyptian law if put into prison and advice on what to bring – onions for tear gas, no excessive cash, sunscreen. We would march on 31 December in solidarity with the people of Gaza – if not with them in Gaza, then on the streets of Cairo. 

The Egyptian Authorities were well informed however and by the following morning had blockaded marchers into the Lotus Hotel and many of the other hotels around the city. Those of us able to move around were closely monitored by hundreds of plainclothes police, gangs of riot police hovered down every laneway, indicative of the Egyptian government’s determination to quash any public demonstrations – gatherings of more than 6 people are illegal in Mubarak’s Egypt, though a certain leniency had been shown towards the international demonstrators. 

We moved in small groups around the Egyptian Museum near Tahrir Square, Cairo’s liberation square, no one sure what would happen, but ready to spring into a flash mob and sieze the moment. Then a small group of us were approached by some senior uniformed police who stopped the traffic and offered to help us gather in the small street by the Museum for our demo. The incessant traffic in Cairo halted. As we made our way across the street, suddenly, a spontaneous break from the police and we were in the central meridian of Cairo’s main thoroughfare at Tahrir Square. Out with the banners and t-shirts: ‘Free Gaza’, ‘End the Siege’, ‘Boycott Israel’. Hundreds of us were chanting, stopping traffic, making noise, waving the Palestinian flag and chanting in solidarity with our friends in Gaza. We will not be silent. 

Then came the crushing force of the Central Security riot police, armed plainclothes police. Chaotic, violent scenes ensued with people falling and being grabbed and pushed to the ground, being kicked and punched in the face, women being pulled by their hair. Surprisingly heavy handed aggression towards foreigners and a departure from the previous days in Cairo. So easily someone could have died, been trampled or kicked in the head. No escape from the assault, surrounded on 3 sides by riot police and barriers and facing the angry plain clothes police on the other. We scrambled desperately for mobile phones to tell the world what is happening, we feared that we would all be taken away to the waiting paddy wagons and beaten further. Twenty scary minutes later, we were corralled onto the wide footpath, barriers set up around us and layers of riot police and security inching their way in. The branches of the laurel tree were draped with Free Gaza banners, cheers as the words of Nelson Mandela are raised on the laurel tree: ‘Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestinians’. There were extremely emotional speeches from country delegations. Al Jazeera TV, BBC World News, You Tube, Press TV - the whole world was watching. There was music and singing and a collage of peoples, religions, nationalities, colours - 85 year old holocaust surviver Hedi Epstein; Philippino MP and writer Walden Bello; Italian MEP Luisa Morgantini; a French Rap Group; South African anti apartheid campaigners; US war veterans for peace; Rabbis; Palestinians; Israelis; elderly ladies on walking sticks; women from Bahrain and many Arab countries; young students from Turkey; Swedes; Scottish trade union activists. An incredible array of people, united in a refusal to be silent. Free Gaza. 

Egyptian men and women passed by in buses and waved to us and to the Palestinian flags and banners. Then came the incredibly intense, charged, minute of silence for the people of Gaza, in the people’s Gaza Square.

While dealing forcefully with the Gaza Freedom March in Cairo, no restraint was shown in crushing demonstrations by Egyptians that took place at the same time at the university – news filtered through of vicious beatings. The metro system was closed in parts of the city to stop Egyptian marchers travelling and to quell any potential civilian unrest in the police state. 

The world is watching 

Media coverage of the Gaza Freedom March in Cairo was beamed around the world. It made breaking news on the BBC News 24 service and Al Jazeera. In Egypt, the events were carried on the front pages of the major opposition newspapers such as al-Wafd, al-Sharouq, al-Dastur and the independent newspapers al-Masri al- Youm and Daily News Egypt. The government owned al Akhbar and al Gumhuriya ignored the events though the pro Government Egyptian Gazette published a photo of the demo at the Israeli embassy. al-Arabi and al-Karama put headline photos on their weekend editions. 

Meanwhile, the Irish media picked up on the ‘young Irish women’ angle of the march and on our earlier detention by Egyptian authorities. Subsequent coverage of the dramatic and violent events surrounding the ‘Viva Palestina’ convoy in el-Arish was well covered by Irish media, especially by Michael Jansen in the Irish Times and a good interview with one of the convoy organizers on Matt Cooper’s ‘The Last Word’.  

The Cairo Declaration

Out of the ashes of the almost crushed Gaza Freedom March arose the ‘Cairo Declaration’ and a renewed, strengthened international solidarity movement. Hundreds of delegates gathered in the small restaurant of the Lotus Hotel on 1st January, 2010 to ratify the ‘Cairo Declaration’. 

In a move spearheaded by the South African delegation, an international working committee drafted a document putting forth a globally-unified plan of action for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israeli apartheid and "to compel Israel to comply with international law." With the concurrence of civil society representatives in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the document reaffirms commitments to "(1) Palestinian self-determination, (2) ending the occupation, (3) equal rights for all within historic Palestine, and (4) the full right of return for Palestinian refugees." The historic document so far includes 128 initial signatories from 16 countries.

In offering thanks to those who travelled across the world for the Gaza Freedom March, one of the marchers, Zaina Abu Innab, a young Jordanian woman with a Palestinian mother wrote:  “You have given us strength by proving to us that we are no longer alone. You have shown us that somewhere, sometime, there are people who embrace our deep anguish, but more importantly, people who hear the cries of Palestinians under siege and occupation. You have given us hope”.

The Gaza Freedom March's 'Remember Palestine' Video 

*Hilary Minch is an Irish development worker with overseas experience in Darfur and South Sudan. She previously worked with Trocaire on the Middle East Central and South East Asia Desk, with GOAL in Sudan and is currently programmes office with Irish development NGO Aidlink. She volunteers as Campaigns Officer with the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC). She has visited Palestine on three occassions, including a trip to Gaza with Trocaire in May, 2008.