Lines of boxes carrying food supplies, medicine, and clothes that were ready to be delivered to the people of Gaza lie in columns in the garage of an apparently regular office building on the outskirts of Cairo. Ahmed Gebrel, head of aid convoys at the Egyptian charity Mersal, checks whether they are in good condition since their return from El-Arish last Thursday: the Rafah’s crossing shut-down by Israel since May 6 has made humanitarian NGOs like theirs get their resources delivery on stand-by.

 

In the beginning of 2024, the now lifeless garage used to be full of volunteers packaging donations and loading them into trucks: handwritten Quran quotes calling for strength and motivation still hang in the walls. Ahmed hardly comes here since they moved to a bigger space that allowed them to stock more aid for Gaza. However, after more than two weeks since the movement of trucks stopped, not even the 1100 square-meter new warehouse can fit the quantity of humanitarian aid that is waiting to be sent.

As negotiations between the US and Egypt seem to have pushed Israel to allow the sending of aid through the Kerem Shalom crossing in the next days, Ahmed and his colleagues at the warehouse –Gumua and Mostafa– reorder some of the boxes. Their chitchat is interrupted every time Ahmed’s phone rings: they are awaiting security clearance from the authorities to continue their work. A wait that breaks their spirit as they look at the televised starvation of their neighbors merely 350km away.

Text by Bianca Carrera, with who was collaborated to develop the story.

Cairo, May 2024.