imageA longer-term strategy to achieve peace and justice for Palestinians is needed.

Members of an international delegation attempting to travel through Egypt to Gaza for International Women’s Day were deported from Egypt recently.

The purpose of the delegation was show solidarity with the women of Gaza, to draw attention to the unbearable suffering caused by the ongoing Israeli blockade, to educate people back in the laureates’ home countries, to push for opening the Gaza borders – and to take solar lamps to help people cope with the electricity shortage.

Among the delegation of 100 women were Northern Ireland Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire, American human rights campaigner Medea Benjamin, and Northern Ireland human rights advocate Ann Patterson.

“We were refused entry and given no reason by Egyptian authorities,” Mairead MaGuire said. “It is a sad day when Egypt refuses entry to peace people and is complicit with Israeli and US policies in continuing the blockade of Gaza.”

Nobel peace prize winner, Medea Benjamin, who had travelled alone, said she was assaulted and injured by Egyptian security officials, deported to Istanbul, Turkey, on March 4 and was hospitalised overnight in Istanbul until her flight to the US midday on March 5.

Gaza is under a tight Egyptian-Israeli blockade and the people of Gaza are reeling from a series of blows that have led some analysts to say that it is facing its worst crisis for more than six years, putting its 1.7 million inhabitants under intense material and psychological pressure.

The effects of Israel’s continued blockade on the civilian population of Gaza has been exacerbated by mounting hostility to Gaza’s Hamas government from the military regime in Cairo, which sees it as an extension of Egypt’s deposed Muslim Brotherhood.

The Egyptians have virtually cut off access to and from Gaza, and as a result Gaza is facing crippling financial problems, power cuts, fuel shortages, price rises, job losses, Israeli air strikes, untreated sewage in the streets and the sea, internal political repression, the near-impossibility of leaving – and a new political isolation.

Before Egypt’s military ousted Morsi on 3 July, an estimated 1,200 people a day used to cross the Egypt-Gaza border at a place called Rafah, which was Gaza’s main window to the world.

Since then, the average number of permitted travellers has only been 250 each day, if Rafah is open at all. At this article’s writing, Rafah had been closed for six consecutive days.

This also affects people needing medical care. Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, told Reuters that 1,000 individuals a month require medical care in Egypt or other countries because of the shortages and other difficulties in the Gaza Strip.

While foreign physicians often travel to Gaza to bring vital supplies and provide care, these days they aren’t being allowed in.

“Until June, we had received 60 delegations of doctors who performed surgery on 1,000 patients. No delegation has arrived since then,” Qidra told Reuters.

The deported delegates had planned to travel through Egypt to be a part of the Code Pink contingent of an international coalition of 100 women travelling to Gaza to witness the hardships facing the residents, deliver humanitarian aid, and call attention to the need for a longer-term strategy to achieve peace and justice for Palestinians.

Code Pink is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end US-funded wars and occupations, to challenge militarism globally, and to redirect the country’s resources into health care, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities.

Maguire has now been deported to London. She has been unreasonably arrested or detained for her involvement with the Free Gaza movement several times.

But despite continuous efforts to prevent her from travelling to the region, she remains actively involved in the Free Gaza Movement and believes that both Palestinian and Israel women have crucial roles to play in the peace process.

Leggi tutto... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WomensViewsOnNews/~3/79Peeyl8oJs/