AMMAN: Activists in charge of the 210-truck convoy carrying humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Gaza Strip said Tuesday that they had decided to change their route after the Egyptian authorities refused them entry to the Red Sea port of Nuweibeh.
The convoy, known as Viva Palestina, will instead travel from the Jordanian port of Aqaba, where it has been stuck for four days, to Amman before heading to Syria, said Ali Abul Sukkar, a spokesman for the Jordanian Professional Associations Council, which is involved in the campaign.
The cargo will later be loaded onto a ship at the Mediterranean port of Latakia, bound for the port of El Arish, the conduit through which Egypt insisted all aid to the Palestinian enclave should pass.
The decision to change the convoy’s route came after a Turkish mediation failed to muster an Egyptian approval for the convoy to travel to the port of Nuweibeh and from there take the land trip to Rafah crossing with Gaza, the only access point into the Palestinian territory that bypasses Israel, Abul Sukkar said.
The convoy is led by the British lawmaker George Galloway and manned by 450 activists from 17 countries, including the United States, European countries and Turkey.
