In mid-October 2023, footage of a huge traffic jam that allegedly arose on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip was circulated on the Internet due to Israel allegedly refusing to allow humanitarian supplies into the region. We checked whether this description of this video is true.
According to publications on social networks, Israel blocked a humanitarian aid convoy for the Gaza Strip - cargo collected by governments around the world, international organizations and charitable foundations remained at the border after the Rafah checkpoint on the Egyptian side was closed. As confirmation, the authors of the posts used a video recording lasting 1 minute. 44 sec., in which a huge caravan of heavy vehicles stands in the desert.
This information was most actively disseminated via Telegram, in particular thanks to the channels “Live broadcast"(780,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Truthfulness"(216,000), "Putin on Telegram"(192,000), Voblya (176,000), "Bullet" (139,000) and "Kot Kostyan - official channel"(97,000).
The radical Islamist movement Hamas (the European Union, the United States, Israel and other countries recognized it as a terrorist organization) on the morning of October 7 caused a series of missile attacks on Israeli territory. At the same time, militants penetrated into the border settlements of this country, where killed hundreds of civilians, and about 200 hostages taken away to the Gaza Strip. In response, Israel began conducting airstrikes on this Palestinian territory and announced imminent start of a ground operation in the region, while Hamas continued shelling of Israeli cities.
October 9 Israeli Defense Minister announced on introducing a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip - electricity, fuel and food stopped flowing there. This decision was condemned, in particular, by human rights organizations Human Rights Watch And Amnesty International, as well as the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell. The humanitarian situation in the region has also worsened due to migration - hundreds of thousands of people, including after appeals Israel to leave the northern Gaza Strip, moved to the southern part of the region, where such a flow of refugees ended up not ready. The Rafah checkpoint on the border with Egypt at the time of writing this analysis is not working - both due to Israeli airstrikes, and because of fearsthat the delivered goods will end up at the disposal of Hamas. Erez checkpoint on the border with Israel was closed shortly after the militant attack. Moreover, since 2007, when the group came to power in the Gaza Strip, the governments in Jerusalem and Cairo have partially blocked region - around were built walls and barriers, and the movement of people and goods was strictly controlled.
Over the past days on the Egyptian side accumulated a large volume of humanitarian aid for residents of the Gaza Strip, arriving from around the world. On Wednesday, October 18, US President Joe Biden, after a conversation with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (this was preceded by lengthy negotiation with Israel) statedthat the parties reached an agreement to send about 20 trucks with food, medicine and fuel through the checkpoint to the Gaza Strip. It was assumed that the trucks would go to the Palestinians on October 20, however, as reports CNN, citing its own sources, the start of flights was postponed for a short period for technical reasons. Egypt, in turn, announced on creating a “sustainable corridor” for humanitarian flights. It is reported that cargo will begin to be delivered on a regular basis if Hamas does not try to interfere with the movement of the trucks or seize them.
Humanitarian aid for Palestinians enters Egypt mainly through the airport in the city of Al-Arish on the Sinai Peninsula, 45 km from the border with Gaza. Over the past few days, vans with these cargoes have repeatedly appeared in the lenses of the world media - both near the Rafah checkpoint and in Al-Arish.
The video that went viral on social networks shows an Egyptian flag, and the terrain really resembles the surroundings of Rafah.
However, no recent photo or video report from this area shows such a long line of trucks, and they look completely different.
In the upper right corner of the image you can see the logo of the Egyptian TV channel Al Nahar.
Video circulated in October 2023 was posted in the channel's official account Facebook, but the date is not recent at all - May 31, 2021. As stated in the description of the video, “for the third time, Egypt is sending the largest convoys of support and assistance to the Palestinians in Gaza.” Indeed, then Egypt, represented by the state fund Tahya Misr, organized the delivery of several multi-ton humanitarian convoys after 11 days of Israeli air strikes on the region following a Hamas rocket attack. The delivery of aid took place as usual; there were no reports of cargo blocking at the border.
Thus, the viral video is genuine, but accompanied by inaccurate comments and has nothing to do with the current escalation of the decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In addition, the final say in unblocking the Rafah checkpoint for humanitarian cargo remained with the Egyptian side, and not with Israel, as can be understood from posts on social networks. Before you get infected with Russian-speaking segment of social networks, a video with an incorrect caption was actively distributed in Arabic - largely thanks to publications user @sameh_asker on social network X (2.2 million views).
Cover photo: social networks
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