Waiting in Port Said for the Hope Fleet delegation to Gaza.

How much longer will the Egyptians tolerate it - and him?

"For three days now we have been waiting here in Port Said for the boat with its cargo of 12 fully equipped ambulances and 40 trucks loaded with medical supplies and special needs equipment.

Part of the 120-member delegation has already left, brokenhearted, unable to enter Sinai, let alone Gaza, and others are due to return to Europe in the next few days.

But some have stayed on, among them Senator Fernando Rossi and 12 European Parliament members who joined us yesterday in Port Said.

The ship is presently in Libya and should be arriving in Port Said at the end of the week—that is, if permitted by the Egyptian authorities, who have been playing a game of nerves with us since our arrival.....

In the last four days, 56 activists have been arrested in Egypt for having participated in or having announced their intention to participate in the “Day of Anger”—organized demonstrations to protest the founding of the state of Israel.




In the past, many other Egyptians have been arrested for speaking out about their government’s “Egypto-Zionist” policies concerning Gaza. Some are still under arrest, like Magdi Hussein, Secretary-General of the Labor Party, or the poet-blogger Ahmed Doma, who were sentenced, respectively, to 2 years and 1 year in prison for illegally crossing the eastern Egyptian border, after their solidarity visit to the Gaza Strip following the Israeli attack that killed 1434 Palestinians wounded more than 5000, and left more than 100,000 homeless.

We have decided to keep on waiting, even though we have no idea what will happen next.

I hope to be able to tell you soon: “We are in Gaza.”
....."