DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- British lawmaker and pro-Palestine activist George Galloway stated Tuesday that he had received two weeks ago an Egyptian letter demanding that he obtains an Israeli approval before allowing the Lifeline 3 convoy to pass into the Gaza Strip, but he refused any kind of coordination with Israel.
"Egypt may be at the beck, call and command of Israel, but Viva Palestina is not," said Galloway in a news conference.
"We refuse to co-operate with a country which continues to illegally hold Palestinian lands, builds even more settlements in the teeth of world opinion and which, just a year ago, slaughtered 1400 people in the Gaza Strip and devastated the infrastructure. Israel refuses to let through one brick, pane of glass or nail to help rebuild the carnage its warplanes caused."
Galloway added that the land convoy to Gaza was symbolic because its arrival was due to coincide with the first anniversary of the war on Gaza, "which the Egyptian authorities have done all they can to thwart".
The Egyptian letter read, according to the Viva Palestina convoy, that “the organizers of the third Viva Palestina convoy should assume the responsibility of coordination with the Israeli authorities on the passage of all the vehicles to the Gaza Strip.”
For his part, head of the humanitarian charitable committee in Turkey Bulent Yildirim said that the convoy is aimed to attract the attention of the world to the Israeli blockade imposed on Gaza and to provide humanitarian aid to its people.
Yildirim added that the negotiations between Turkey and the Egyptian authorities paid off and the convoy would enter Gaza through the Rafah border crossing without Israel’s approval.
On a late hour on Tuesday, the third Lifeline convoy arrived in Damascus where thousands of Syrians and Palestinians received it carrying flags, flowers and banners hailing the humanitarian role of the convoy and condemning the Egyptian government for putting a spoke in the convoy’s wheel.
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