The March to Gaza is off after a tumultuous weekend that saw Canadians detained and deported, passports removed and piled haphazardly on the ground, and that saw police beat demonstrators for trying to travel between Cairo and Ismailia.
I spent my weekend speaking with a marcher, Canadian physician Yipeng Ge, who was there for it all. I also spoke with Global Affairs Canada about a Canadian who went missing for more than 24 hours at the hands of the Egyptian police.
Yipeng’s updates were, at times, hard to hear — but one thing held true throughout the entire weekend: these people tried.
At a time when lawmakers and so many people in positions of power are refusing to take concrete action, average people took the power they had into their own hands and did what they could do break the siege.
They tried to get the trucks that wait just outside Gaza at the Rafah crossing, just out of reach, into the hands of starving Palestinians. They tried to save their lives.
The world will never get better if people don’t try — even if the odds aren’t in their favour.
Here’s the update on how this weekend went.
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