New Brunswick prof travelling to Egypt-Gaza border to call for end of blockade [video]

A University of New Brunswick professor plans to travel to Egypt next month, where he will join an international march to the border of the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip.

Activists taking part in the Global March to Gaza are demanding that authorities open the Rafah crossing on the southern border of the Gaza Strip to allow for the flow of international aid.

Jeff Houlahan, a professor of biology who helped to establish a Gaza solidarity protest site at UNB Saint John last year, said he will join thousands of people for a march lasting two days.

He said that a Canadian delegation will arrive in Cairo on June 12, staying there overnight before travelling by bus to the city of al-Arish, about 50 kilometres from the border with Gaza. They plan cover the last part of the journey on foot.

“That crossing is where we have the hundreds and maybe thousands of trucks that are sitting there full of food and supplies, humanitarian aid, much of the food beginning to rot while kids are starving,” he said. `

Watch the full interview with Prof. Jeff Houlahan: 

A website for the Global March to Gaza states that marchers will not attempt to forcibly enter the Gaza Strip. “We aim to negotiate the opening of the Rafah terminal with the Egyptian authorities, in collaboration with NGOs, diplomats, and humanitarian institutions,” the website states.

Houlahan said it’s a largely grassroots initiative, with people like himself from 32 countries around the world self-financing the journey. He said he’s the only delegate from New Brunswick, and he’s unaware of anyone else from the Atlantic region attending, but that a diverse group of people from other parts of Canada will take part.

Their message is simple: “Lift the siege, let food and medical supplies food through, stop killing people,” he said.

He grew emotional while reflecting on the daily suffering of children in the Gaza Strip. “We all stand looking down on our children as they sleep — peacefully and safely is what we want — and we all want to wake up in the morning and be able to feed them.”

During a recent sabbatical, Houlahan felt “untethered” from the Palestine solidarity movement as the situation in Gaza worsened, prompting him to join the march. “I had this sense that I wasn’t doing much — and that that was kind of intolerable — that I had to do something,” he said.

The outspoken biology professor has criticized UNB’s administration for its response to pro-Palestine activism on campus during Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. The military campaign, widely condemned as genocidal, followed surprise attacks led by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.

The Canadian delegation is being coordinated by Manuel Tapial of the Montreal-based group Palestine Vivra, Houlahan said. Tapial was part of the Freedom Flotilla that attempted to breach Israel’s naval blockade on the Gaza Strip in 2010 to deliver humanitarian aid. At the time, the flotilla was raided by Israeli marines who killed nine Turkish civilian activists.

Houlahan acknowledged that the march to Gaza is potentially dangerous but said that organizers are taking precautions. “There is a certain amount of uncertainty,” but people from every participating country hav contacted their embassy in Egypt about the plans.

If Egyptian authorities don’t allow the march to proceed, Plan B is a protest in Cairo, he added.

“Of course, these folks that are more experienced, they’re saying that questioning, detention, deportation, all of these things are possibilities,” he said.

Over the past two months, Israel imposed a total blockade on the Gaza Strip, before allowing minimal supplies to enter last week, leaving the enclave still gripped by hunger.

There were chaotic scenes in Rafah this week as desperate crowds rushed to receive aid from a controversial group that uses U.S. security contractors and bypasses the United Nations, with dozens of people injured and one person killed, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

On Wednesday, at least 36 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, including eight at the home of journalist Osama al-Arbid in the northern Strip, Al Jazeera reported. Twenty-two of 38 hospitals in the enclave are reportedly out of service, and those continuing to operate face “catastrophic” medical supply shortages.

David Gordon Koch is a journalist with the NB Media Co-op. Ryan Hillier is a writer and settler living on the banks of the Petkootkweăk. This reporting has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada, administered by the Canadian Association of Community Television Stations and Users (CACTUS).