Irresponsible March to Gaza Attempt

A few days ago, Egyptian & Libyan authorities detained international pro-Palestinian activits that were headed to Gaza. The Egyptian ones arrested about 40 of them. Hundreds of other activities arrived in Cairo and they were caught as well. A separate group arrived in Libya too. This whole organization was for the purpose of highlighting Gaza's worsening humanitarian crisis.

Based on this aftermath, this attempt from the activists heading towards Gaza proved irresponsible considering the fact that this event seemed highly disorganized, violated the two countries' security, and possibly made any future humanitarian aid more complicated.

The marching attempt to Gaza itself wasn't coordinated properly. It seemed like the organizers reached activists from over 80 countries to all come over to the strip without any authorization first. They didn't notify those countries about their trip. They didn't secure any permits. They didn't check in with security. And the event was without any clear logistics with border authorities.

On top of that, those protestors were heading into a dangerous area without any formal protection. Egypt has treated the Sinai Peninsula as a sensitive area rife with extremist groups. Although the organizers acknowledged they weren't granted authorization to travel there, the march continued anyway. This also put Egypt on a situation between allowing an unauthorized event to cause havoc in this region or otherwise be perceived as suppressing pro-Palestinian support.

And regarding the large number of protestors, that sheer number caused consequent chaos of police arrivals, mass detentions, & deportations. This proved to be a disastrous attempt. It caused a big distraction among the workers & people already in that region.

Lastly, this created a stain on the pro-Palestine movement about the current war. For now on, there would be a bunch of headlines about this event for a while, completely defeating the purpose of delivering aid. Also, it would communicate to the rest of us that pro-Palestinians jump to activities based on emotional sentiments and not critical-thinking & strategy.

All this was a response to Israel blocking humanitarian aid in Gaza since March. Since then, the crisis in Gaza worsened because nobody from the outside was able to help. And apparently, the march was started to deliver aid from ordinary people to the devastated civilians in Gaza.

If this were a real humanitarian organization coordinating a large-scale event like this, there would've been months of work to plan for in advance, which includes working with governments, obtaining permits, coordinating security arrangements, and an understanding of everyone's roles.

These organizers of the march appear to not do any of these crucial steps. And because of that, this event turned out to be a waste of time.