An 85-year-old Holocaust survivor was among a group of grandmothers set to begin a hunger strike in Cairo on Monday to protest at Egypt's refusal to allow a Gaza solidarity march to proceed, organizers said.
American activist Hedy Epstein and other grandmothers participating in the Gaza Freedom March will stage a hunger strike at 1200 GMT, Ann Wright, a march organizer told AFP.
Egyptian authorities had said it would not allow any of the 1,300 protestors who have come straight to Egypt from 42 countries to take part in the march to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing, the only entry that bypasses Israel.
At noon on 27 December, Egyptian security forces detained a group of 30 activists in their hotel in El-Arish as they prepared to leave for Gaza, placing them under house arrest. The delegates, all part of the Gaza Freedom March of 1,300 people, were Spanish, French, British, American, and Japanese
Separately, an aid convoy trying to reach the Palestinian coastal territory through Egypt remains stranded in Jordan's Red Sea town of Aqaba amid Cairo's refusal to let it cross through its territory.
The two convoys were planning to arrive one year after Israel's devastating war on Gaza that killed 1,400Palestinians. Thirteen Israelis also died.
Meanwhile, at least 300 French participants spent the night camped out in front of their embassy in Cairo, bringing a major road in the capital to a halt, as riot police in plexiglass shields surrounded them.
On Monday, police briefly detained 38 international participants in the Sinai town of El-Arish, organizers said.
"At noon on 27 December, Egyptian security forces detained a group of 30 activists in their hotel in El-Arish as they prepared to leave for Gaza, placing them under house arrest. The delegates, all part of the Gaza Freedom March of 1,300 people, were Spanish, French, British, American, and Japanese," a statement on the group's website said.
"Another group of eight people, including American, British, Spanish, Japanese and Greek citizens, were detained at the bus station of El-Arish in the afternoon of December 27," they said.
On Monday, Egyptian police also stopped some 200 protesters from renting boats on the Nile to hold a procession to commemorate those who died in the Gaza war.
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