Merry Christmas STEEL WALL in the Holy Land

Gaza, 25 December . Stranded at the Jordanian Aqaba port, the international aid convoy organized by Viva Palestina asked anew the Egyptian authorities to allow the passage of the 250 vehicles and 300 people to the Egyptian port of Nuweiba, from where they would reach the prescribed venue of al-Arish overland, considering that there are no shipping lanes between Aqaba and al-Arish.

From Gaza, a committee to break the siege set up by the Gaza Strip administration called on the Egyptian government to facilitate the arrival of the international aid convoy headed by George Galloway and endorsed by many prominent figures such as the US scholar Noam Chomsky and others. The committee expressed concern at the Egyptian moves to put obstacles in the way of the convoy bringing food, medicine and other primary goods to the Gaza Strip residents, who have been under Israeli siege for the past four years.

The committee called on the Egyptian government to lift the siege instead of participating in it by building the "wall of death." The reference was to the huge steel wall currently under construction by Egyptian workers and supervised by US and French officials to enforce a more efficient isolation of the Gaza Strip population. The Palestinian Information Centre reported on details obtained from sources in Cairo saying that the death wall is conceived to function as a water-leaking system, by which existing tunnels will be flooded and anyone trying to build new tunnels would be drowned.

According to the report, on the Palestinian side of the steel wall holes will be dug, into which 20 to 30 meters long pipes would be inserted vertically and at a distance of 30 to 40 meters one from another; these pipes would be connected through a 10 km-long horizontal main pipeline, from which sea water would be poured into them. The pipes, equipped with holes, would then release the sea water into the soil causing existing tunnels to collapse and preventing new ones to be dug.

The comb-shaped pipe system would also destroy the soil on the Palestinian side of the steel wall, which would contemporaneously prevent the salty water from soaking Egyptian territory. In the Gaza Strip mass demonstrations were held against Egypt's plan to build the steel wall. Turkish parliamentarians and politicians raised their voices describing the Egyptian steel wall as a new instrument meant to kill Palestinians. Talking to Al-Alam TV, Muhammad Patuk, vice-chairman of Turkey's Saadet Party said on Christmas Eve, it is difficult to look on as Palestinians face additional oppression from the Egyptian side, which is seen helping the Israeli occupation forces turning the Gaza Strip into an open-air prison.

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