'If Egypt is free, Gaza will be free,' says activist who locked Cairo embassy
An Egyptian activist who chained shut the gates of Egypt’s embassy in The Hague has told Middle East Eye that he did so in protest against Cairo’s “complicity” in Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Last week, Anas Habib filmed himself attaching a bicycle lock around the gates of the embassy in the Netherlands, as a symbolic gesture in solidarity with Palestinians besieged by Israel and Egypt in Gaza.
He went on to do the same act at the Jordanian embassy in response to the kingdom’s response to Israel’s war.
The action went viral on Arabic social media, prompting similar demonstrations in other countries, including Turkey and the UK, where activists also chained shut the gates of Egyptian embassies.
“I know for 100 percent sure that the Egyptian regime is complicit in the genocide,” Habib told MEE’s live show on Tuesday. “This is just not an accusation; it's a fact.”
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He said that in the first two months of Israel’s war, in late 2023, before Israeli forces had occupied the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, Cairo had the ability to allow aid and food into the enclave but refused to do so.
“After it got occupied by the [Israeli military], now they are saying: 'No, it's closed',” said Habib.
He added that the late former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s role in ending a previous Israeli war on Gaza in 2012 showed what the country was capable of achieving.
“It's something that we can do. Egypt is capable of stopping this genocide, stopping this war very easily, but he does not want that to happen,” Habib added, referring to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
At the age of 15, Habib was detained by Egyptian authorities for two years as a political prisoner. He said that if he were to return there now, he would be arrested or killed.
Around 60,000 political prisoners are currently being held in Egyptian jails.
As further evidence of Egyptian complicity, Habib questioned why Egyptians were being arrested for showing solidarity with Palestinians.
“Why do you arrest the people trying to send money to Gaza?” he asked. “Why, if anyone tries to hold [the] Palestinian flag in Egypt, will [they] be vanished?”
“If you really love Palestine so much, why are you doing this to your people?”
'Hurts me so much as an Egyptian'
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), the largest humanitarian provider in Gaza, has had 6,000 trucks loaded with food and medical supplies waiting in Egypt and Jordan for four and a half months. Israel has yet to allow them entry.
Hundreds of international activists attempting to march to the Gaza Strip through Egypt have been violently attacked, detained and deported since the beginning of the conflict.
They were among 4,000 activists from 80 countries who sought to break Israel’s total siege.
Habib said he holds Jordan and Egypt accountable for Israeli crimes in Gaza.
“If it was not for Sisi, if it was not for the king of Jordan… this genocide wouldn't last for two years,” he said.
“I'm Egyptian. It hurts me so much to see that my country is doing this to Palestine.”
He said that freedom within Egypt from autocratic rule would ensure that “Gaza will never face this type of genocide”.
'If it was not for Sisi, if it was not for the king of Jordan… this genocide wouldn't last for two years'
- Anas Habib, activist
“If Egyptian people are free, Gaza also will be free,” Habib said. “That's why [Israel and the US] want someone like Sisi in power.”
Nearly 150 Palestinian children and adults in Gaza have died from starvation since Israel's onslaught on Gaza began in October 2023.
The blockade on the Palestinian enclave has fluctuated in intensity. However, since 2 March, Israel has prevented all food and aid from reaching starving Palestinians.
Last week, more than 100 international human rights and humanitarian organisations called for an end to the siege, citing widespread starvation affecting their staff.
Unrwa communications director Juliette Touma also told MEE last week that several of the organisation's staff fainted on duty due to malnutrition.
More than 58,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israel’s war on Gaza, which several countries, as well as many international rights groups and experts, now classify as genocide.
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