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Just over a month ago, I flew out of Perth for Egypt’s capital, Cairo, to join a global contingent of people seeking to challenge the siege on Gaza, and demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinian people, who are living under conditions of genocide.

The decision to go was a somewhat whirlwind one — much to the chagrin of my family — but followed months of protest in response to this genocide, and specifically to the culpability of the Australian government.

Like many others in the West, our federal government has enabled Israel’s onslaught by providing weapons components and diplomatic protection, despite condemnation from the highest institutions of international law and human rights organisations.

This has included the release of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former army chief Yoav Gallant, and statements by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, alongside scholars of international law and genocide. All have concluded that this is a genocide.

Dehumanisation

The latter was of particular interest to me, since I recently completed a postgraduate thesis on Holocaust remembrance. The thesis considered the importance of the Nazi genocide as a touchstone for teaching about human rights and the dangers of dehumanisation — often referenced in this way by bodies like the United Nations and European Union — with the view to “preventing other genocides”.

Sickeningly, we have spent 21 months watching human rights and international law being trashed at the highest levels, while the Western political and media establishment have dehumanised Palestinians in their responses: through denials, whitewashing and minimisation of the slaughter.

All of this prompted my decision to join the Global March to Gaza (GM2G): a movement formed by a group of Palestinians in the diaspora, led by spokesperson Saif Abu Keshek.

GM2G’s plan was to gather contingents from more than 40 countries in Cairo, from where they would travel towards Rafah — which borders Gaza — and negotiate for aid to be let into the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing. The crossing has two sides — one administered by Egypt, and the other by Israel. In March, Israel placed a total humanitarian blockade on Gaza, preventing food, medical supplies and other aid from coming into the territory.

The situation became immeasurably worse (but in a different fashion) in late May, when Israel allowed a small trickle of aid to be let in, for distribution by the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” (GHF).

Médecins Sans Frontièrs (Doctors Without Borders) has described this United States- and Israeli-backed organisation of introducing “slaughter masquerading as aid”. Israel Defense Forces soldiers and US contractors have so far killed more than 600 people at the GHF’s four distribution hubs in south and central Gaza.

Destination Rafah

According to the GM2G plan, those gathering in Cairo would set off on June 13 by bus for the town of Al Arish, before walking to Rafah through Egypt’s Sinai, camping overnight on the way.

The Australian contingent included 35 people, whom I met up with upon arrival, and we discussed our expectations for reaching Cairo. Many were not confident that we would get that far, since there were multiple checkpoints along the way, and the whole Sinai region around Rafah was a military zone.

We also knew that under President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the authorities had suppressed local protest against the genocide. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz had also urged the Egyptian government to prevent a land convoy of more than 1500 people from surrounding North African countries — known as the “Sumud Contingent” — from travelling to Egypt via Libya.

On June 12, our media team spent much of the day drafting media releases and ensuring we had enough data on our phones. We also heard that Egyptian authorities had begun rounding up members of the global contingent at their accommodation, stopping people at the airport and, in many cases, deporting them. This had already happened to two members of the Australian contingent, and they were unable to join us in Cairo.

We were lucky to avoid our hotel being raided, but were told that cars used by the secret police had been observed in the street outside. All of this contributed to a heightened tension, which prompted several of us to change our accommodation arrangements. We were also told by organisers that the march route would also be changing.

On the morning of June 13, we received a message from Saif telling us that instead of taking a bus to Al Arish, we should instead journey from Cairo to the tourist town of Al Ismailia by taxi or Uber, and expect to go through a number of checkpoints between the two, before travelling on to Rafah.

Checkpoints

Setting off at midday, some members of the Australian contingent managed to get through the first two checkpoints, before being turned back at the third. However, this was not the experience of most people, who were held up for hours at the first two and had their passports taken from them by Egyptian police.

A “bottleneck” formed at checkpoint two, where more than 700 GM2G participants were stopped, with many getting out of their vehicles, and waiting on the ground outside — some sat in silence, while others chanted “Free Palestine”.

At checkpoint one — where around 300 people had been stopped — there was also trouble, with some women reporting heat exhaustion, after hours of waiting for their passports to be returned. Additionally, when passports were given back, they were often mixed up, causing tensions to rise between police and march participants, .

By about six o’clock in the evening many people at both checkpoints had not yet received their passports back. Nevertheless, police surrounded them and insisted that they leave on buses organised to take them away.

When some insisted on staying, they were dragged to the buses. At checkpoint two, a group of masked men and youths — identified by some as the Baltagiya (meaning thugs, in Arabic) — threw bottles at march participants. Some bottles were later found to contain sharp objects. The Baltagiya is a pro-government militia often used to break up and otherwise discourage protests.

By late evening, members of the global contingent found themselves on the buses, with many returning to Cairo. Many were later detained at cafes and hotels around the city. Overall, Egyptian authorities deported about 500 people — 300 of whom had been stopped at the Ismailia checkpoints.

People are rising

In the following days, our contingent was somewhat scattered: some decided to take time away from Cairo for safety reasons, while others lay low in the city. Israel’s illegal attacks on Iran — and the subsequent return of strikes — also raised concerns, as airspaces across the region began to close.

I left Egypt on June 21, arriving in Australia the following day. I continued to hear reports of other delegations facing interrogations, assault and deportation.

Looking back, it is easy to feel discouraged by the fact that we did not reach Rafah, although this was perhaps inevitable, given El-Sisi’s generally collaborative relationship with Israel, and desire to keep the Sinai clear.

Many of us had also flown into Egypt in the wake of Israel’s interception of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla’s Madleen and detention of its passengers, who had also been attempting to reach Gaza.

However, reflecting on the latter also highlights the essential lesson of the GM2G: that in the wake of this genocide — and against the culpability of our political and media establishments — many ordinary people are rising.

The “Converge on Canberra” protest being held from July 20–22 will bring activists from across the country to rally at Parliament House and urge the Federal government to sanction Israel.

And we will not stop trying to reach Gaza. Watch this space.