[ 01/11/2010 - 10:22 AM ]
CAIRO, (PIC)-- Members of the European "Hope" convoy carrying aid to the Gaza Strip said that they were hopeful of a decision by president Hosni Mubarak to allow them enter Egypt via land route to deliver their aid consignment.
Dr. Mohammed Al-Haddad, the coordinator of the convoy, told Quds Press in a telephone contact on Sunday that they have been stuck at the borders for five days waiting an Egyptian approval to allow them entry.
He added that the Egyptian foreign ministry told them that they have to trek the sea or air route to El-Arish harbor and from there to Gaza.
Haddad said that the convoy organizers, who do not have enough money to charter a ship or a plane to carry the aid, had sent a message to Mubarak appealing to him to exempt the convoy from the Egyptian conditions for entering assistance to Gaza.
For his part, Ken O'Keefe, an American activist taking part in the convoy, told Quds Press that the convoy with 30 vehicles and around 100 relief activists including eight who survived the Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla had come a long distance, almost 4,500 miles, and now finds itself at a dead-end.
O'Keefe, 44, said that they were still optimistic the Egyptians would allow them land entry.
The activist, who also participated in the Freedom Flotilla, said that the convoy had no other option but the land or sea route, the second being very expensive and would eat up most of the already limited resources they had collected in order to deliver them to the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Road to Hope convoy: We are stalled at Egyptian border
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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