Ismailia police yesterday blocked a 21-vehicle relief convoy headed by the Islamic scholar Dr. Safwat Hegazy and the retired actress Hanan Turk and bound for Gaza with medical and food supplies and blankets.
Police forces stopped the convoy before crossing el-Salam Bridge over the Suez Canal at the Qantara area and ordered it to return to Cairo following talks with Hegazy and Turk.
On Friday, the Ismailia Doctors Union dispatched its first humanitarian relief convoy, carrying supplies, equipment, donated food, medical supplies, blankets, and clothes to Gazans.
Union member Dr. Sayed Rafat told ‘al-Masry al-Youm’ that volunteers from Ismailia helped the union load supplies onto the four-truck convoy.
Chairwoman of the Arab Women Association Dr. Huda Badran, meanwhile, told ‘al-Masry al-Youm’ the association plans to visit the border towns of Rafah and Arish on Tuesday to distribute food aid and blankets on Palestinians stranded at the Rafah border crossing.
This came as volunteers from the American University in Cairo began a donation campaign to collect material, monetary and medical donations that will be sent to Gazans.
For its part, the Popular Committee in Solidarity of the Palestinian Intifada urged political parties, trade and workers unions and NGOs to raise all the possible in-kind donations they can ahead of a relief convoy bound for the borders with Gaza on Thursday.
