Viva Palestina Convoy Bids Farewell As They Complete Their Mission

From Kuzaimah Idris

GAZA, Jan 8 (Bernama) -- After 48 hours of getting the feel of Gaza, the Viva Palestina convoy finally bade goodbye to the Palestinians at 10am local time (Gaza time).

Although their stay in Gaza was a short one, the volunteer force of 450 people were satisfied as they successfully completed their mission in delivering trucks and ambulances loaded with humanitarian aid including educational and medical supplies directly to the Palestinians in Gaza.

Malaysia donated four trucks of humanitarian aid and one ambulance worth 100,000 pounds to the Gaza Elwafa hospital.

Dr Khamis Elessi, Head of Medical Rehabilitation, Elwafa Hospital said the Palestinians are grateful to Malaysians for donating the various supplies.

"We thank the Malaysian government, the Malaysian people for donating this truck for Elwafa Hospital Gaza, we are so grateful for Malaysian people for coming over such a long distance, we are so grateful that we find honest, courageous and generous people like the Malaysian people.

"The Palestinians in Gaza need thousands and thousands of tonnes (of medical aid), this kind of donation will for sure help many people recover and help make the lives of many people much better during these horrible times and miseries", he added.

Viva Palestina founder and organizer, George Galloway, said this mission was not the last.

"God bless Tun Dr Mahathir (Mohamad), god bless Viva Palestina, god bless Malaysia people who contributed in any way including the beautiful journalist for the success of the mission.

Similar missions of sending aid to the Palestinians in Gaza were organized in March and July last year.

"We will never stop until the siege is lifted, we will never stop, maybe we will come by sea next time then we'll only have one obstacles to deal with instead of many", he said.

The convoy of various nationals started their journey from London on Dec 6, traveling through various cities and towns in Turkey, Syria and Jordan.

They encountered various obstacles especially from the Egyptian Government for not allowing them to use its Nuweiba city as a gateway to Gaza via Rafah. This delayed their December 27 dateline to reach Gaza, marking a year of Israelis atrocities against the Palestinians.

The convoy started with 220 vehicles comprising trucks, ambulances and sedan cars, but upon arriving at the El-Arish port city, they were forced to leave behind 59 cars with the Egyptian government.

Their suffering did not end there. Many members were injured during a protest against the Egyptian authorities, resulting in seven being arrested, including a Malaysian student.

Source: Bernama.
Link: http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=467113.