Activists in the Netherlands have chained shut the gates of the Egyptian embassy in protest at the country’s closure of its border with Gaza.
Egyptian activist Anas Habib filmed himself going to the embassy building in The Hague on Monday, denouncing the “vile, treacherous regime” of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
Attaching a bicycle lock to the gates of the embassy, he claimed it was symbolic of the Egyptian’s government’s claims that the Rafah crossing with Gaza had been closed by the Israelis and that they were unable to open it.
“The siege is from their side, not mine,” he says of the bicycle lock.
“I’ll stay standing here until the police arrive, because I won’t open it until Gaza is opened.”
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On Wednesday, a number of Dutch activists repeated the act. Police cut the locks both times and briefly detained the protesters before releasing them without charge.
Israel’s siege on Gaza since 2 March has blocked the entry of humanitarian supplies by the UN and its partner organisations to the enclave, bringing the 2.1 million population to the brink of famine.
Children will die quickly amid ‘genocidal starvation’ in Gaza, warns top famine expert
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At least 101 Palestinians, including 80 children, have died of starvation since March, including 15 who died of malnutrition on Monday, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), the largest humanitarian provider in Gaza, has had 6,000 trucks loaded with food and medical supplies waiting in Egypt and Jordan for four and a half months, but Israel has yet to let them in.
Hundreds of international activists attempting to march to the Gaza Strip through Egypt have been violently attacked, detained and deported since the beginning of the conflict.
They were among 4,000 activists from 80 countries who sought to break Israel’s total siege.
