2024-02-06 09:22:25
LFI deputy Eric Coquerel with the delegation of left-wing parliamentarians at the Rafah border crossing, Egyptian entry into the Gaza Strip, February 4, 2024. – / AFP
In the middle of the desert, the Rafah border crossing separates Egypt from the Gaza Strip. Behind iron gates, after a buffer zone of several kilometers, hides the last town of the enclave, and the hell of war. Sunday February 4, a delegation of around fifteen left-wing parliamentarians visited the Palestinian territory. Girded by their tricolor scarf, they asked for a “immediate and permanent ceasefire” in the region, through the voice of the La France insoumise (LFI) deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis, Eric Coquerel.
The day before, Rafah was the target of bombings. After denouncing them, the president of the finance committee of the National Assembly declared that the « massacres » committed by Hamas on October 7 cannot “justify the deaths of 27,000 Palestinians”. The figure comes from the health ministry of the Hamas-administered Gaza Strip, which announced Sunday that 27,365 people had been killed in the coastal territory since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement.
The scene is broadcast live on social networks. Above, in the sky, the buzz of a drone betrays the presence of the Israeli army. Around, restricted activity agitates the border post, officially closed to the Gazan population. Only a few pallets of equipment or foodstuffs and one or two ambulances will cross the wall.
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Eric Coquerel has been imagining this trip to support the Palestinians since December. But obtaining Egyptian authorizations to cross the Sinai, the militarized zone which leads to the border, was not an easy task. The elected LFI highlights the decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), on January 26, calling on Israel to prevent any possible act of “genocide”. This makes, according to him, the demand for a ceasefire even more legitimate.
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The bulk of this delegation is made up of “rebellious” deputies, including the elected representative from Seine-et-Marne Ersilia Soudais, vice-president of the study group on anti-Semitism in the National Assembly, her colleague from Seine-et-Marne Saint-Denis Thomas Portes, never short of superlatives to denounce the actions of the Israeli army, which he describes as “genocide”or even the elected representative of the Loire Andrée Taurinya, who came “ relay the thousands of voices who mobilized throughout France”in reference to the demonstrations in support of the Palestinian people organized every Saturday since the fall.
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