The Global March to Gaza is not the story; Gaza remains the story

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Also published in rabble.ca on July 9, 2025.

Along with over 4000 other people from 80 different countries, I joined the Global March to Gaza in an attempt to march to the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Palestine, to increase international pressure and attention on breaking the siege and blockade of the Gaza Strip.

People from all over the world, including Palestinians from the diaspora, attempted to leave Cairo for Ismailia so we can gather as a group to meet one another and see our people power. With the plan to continue the journey onwards towards Al Arish so we could march onwards to the Rafah border crossing. This was all in solidarity with the Palestinian people who were then experiencing a telecommunications blackout on top of an ongoing famine and genocide that has lasted 21 months at the hands of Israel.

People came to Cairo to do this solidarity work knowing the risks and knowing how important bringing attention to ending the famine and stopping the genocide is. I met people who were prepared in their minds ready to take the risk of dying at the hands of the Egyptian or Israeli military so that they could attempt to bring aid into Gaza.

These people that came to Egypt to participate in this march come from all walks of life, but share this beautiful idea that we are collectively responsible for helping to change the conditions in this world so that they are better for everyone, especially for people who are most oppressed in this current moment and experiencing ongoing genocidal violence.

People were detained and deported for simply being accused of participating in the march. We saw many forms of repression like people being detained with their passports taken, not only at checkpoints but also when people were on their way to a hotel or walking on the street in Ismailia. People were beaten by the authorities and by agitators. People were deported after being questioned. Some people didn’t receive their passports back.

I have seen some messages about how this is not unexpected from Egypt, about how foreigners are naive about Egypt, or simply messages of “I told you so, why even try?”. But here is the thing… We have to try. When we give up and we no longer try to help end a 21-month long genocide using all the ways possible within our power as ordinary citizens of this world, and as people of conscience of this world, what are we really giving up on? We aren’t just giving up on the Palestinian people, but we give up on the idea of shared humanity and collective responsibility in this world.

The social and political context of Egypt is important to understand. There are tens of thousands of political prisoners in Egyptian jails, including students, activists, journalists who have attempted to organize in solidarity with the Palestinian people experiencing genocide by Israel. They have been disappeared by and some are still held by the Egyptian authorities. This is well documented. As is how the Egyptian Hala company has required thousands of dollars from Palestinians leaving Gaza to cross the border. Or even the mistreatment of Palestinian evacuees in Egyptian hospitals who receive substandard care despite being evacuated from Gaza for medical reasons. Or the tens of thousands of Palestinians in Egypt without status and documents to attend work or school. And and and… This is why understanding the role of your privilege as a foreigner to bring attention to the struggle of Palestinians is so crucial and necessary. And to do it in a way that recenters the Palestinian struggle for liberation.

I spent a little over a week in Cairo reconnecting with friends and colleagues who are doing amazing work. There continues to be great work happening on the ground, but nothing feels like enough when the genocide in Gaza continues to intensify.

Daily massacres continue at the “food aid” distribution sites in Gaza coordinated by the Americans and Israelis through the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”. It is completely undignified the way that scarce food aid is given out, nothing in line with humanitarian principles and practices. The Israeli military are gunning down Palestinians who simply are trying to get food for their starving families and loved ones.

This is why the Tunisian sumoud convoy and the freedom flotillas attempted to bring aid in by land and sea. The international community continues to fail to end famine and stop genocide. This is all preventable. Everyday citizens of the world, volunteers and activists, are taking on the role of attempting to bring aid into Gaza when this should be the role of all states and political leaders in this world. We continue to see remarkable inaction by many states and political leaders, and continued impunity be given to Israel.

My friends who came with me from Ottawa on this trip were detained and held on a bus for over 12 hours – they did nothing wrong, and were simply pulled off the streets for being accused of being a part of the march. What were they sharing on their social media? What was on their minds? It wasn’t their release, nor their wellbeing that was top of mind. It was the genocide and the famine that was and still is continuing in Gaza. That the oppression they were experiencing then pales in comparison to what Palestinians are experiencing every day. I care about their wellbeing deeply, and I am proud of them for their steadfastness and courage to do things despite the risk. To try and to not give up or give into defeatism.

We must keep trying to break the siege, to end the blockade, and to stop the genocide. Gaza is the story, and has always been the story.

Ending genocide is a collective responsibility and a moral duty if we truly believe in shared humanity. That my life is not more valuable than a Palestinian’s life in Gaza. Even if the world sees it in such a way, we refuse to. And in fact, we understand the importance of using the privilege we do hold to put our bodies on the line so that we get closer to a world where Palestinians have their inherent rights to life, dignity, and self-determination respected in this world.

This is why we were doing what we’re doing, and this is why we will continue to keep organizing and mobilizing. Join us.

Although we were unsuccessful in marching to the Rafah border crossing, we were successful in showing the world that people of conscience from all over the world care deeply about Palestinian human rights. We must try to do everything we can within our power to end the famine and stop the genocide. We will continue. We will keep trying. We must keep trying. Until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea.

Genocide as a disease.

yipengLeave a comment

Remarks delivered at a press conference in Geneva on June 25, 2025, with UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng (@drtlaleng) regarding “genocide as a disease”.

My name is Dr. Yipeng Ge, and I am a family doctor also trained in public health, and I am based on the traditional unceded unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg. Also known as Ottawa, Canada. Or the nation’s capital. I have studied the impacts of settler colonialism as a structure and process that affects Indigenous peoples’ health in the settler colonial state of Canada, as well as Zionist settler colonialism and the ongoing Nakba as a structure and process that affects Palestinian health in occupied Palestine.

I was in Gaza last year as a medical volunteer in primary care clinics in central Rafah, and I witnessed with my own eyes the impacts of forced starvation on the children I cared for. I remember caring for young paediatric patients who were no longer walking due to severe malnutrition, and children that should have been walking based on their developmental milestones like at age 12 or 14 months of age, but were not walking due to severe malnutrition. I remember the World Health Organization recommended us to use measuring tape to track the upper arm circumference of children to determine malnutrition – but not only was this tape not available at the clinics I worked at (along with many other essential medications and supplies), but I did not need a measuring tape to tell me how some children were just skin and bones because I was able to wrap my index finger and thumb around the upper arm and even lower leg of a child that was 9-10 years old being held by his mother because he could no longer walk.

This is an entirely preventable famine imposed on the Palestinian people in Gaza by Israel and its allies who allow lifesaving food, water, and medical aid to be withheld to an entire population under illegal occupation and blockade since 2007, which also included the Israeli policy of limiting food to only meet the minimum amount of calories to avoid malnutrition effectively putting the entire population on a diet. I remember meeting children who weren’t my patients because they would visit the clinic to say hi to me or ask me what my name was, and I thought they were much younger than they actually were – and I realized they were children physically stunted by the impacts of a long standing blockade on food aid.

This colonial practice of starvation is unfortunately not new. Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister used this tactic to ethnically cleanse and displace the Indigenous population for the settlement of Canada as a settler colonial state, and in his own words he said that the Indigenous population were kept on the “verge of actual starvation”.

Last week, I was in Cairo, Egypt with thousands of other ordinary people and citizens of this world who simply want to see an end to the famine and genocide in Gaza. In the past few weeks, the freedom flotilla, the Tunisian sumoudconvoy, and the global march to Gaza has attempted to bring aid into Gaza by sea, land, and air. These efforts were all stopped by Israel and its partners in this genocide. I remember seeing the kilometres upon kilometres of aid trucks carrying food, water, medicines, and more all held up at the Rafah border crossing over a year ago. Nothing has changed. Israel continues to systemically withhold aid from entering Gaza to meet the needs of the population.

My friend Muhammad, an ambulance driver, who I met in Gaza last year, has been texting me updates during the last few days. He tells me:

“We are here in Gaza. Our dreams and our children’s dreams end here.”

“Horror. Fear. Hunger. Thirst. Death. We are not okay. I’m sorry to tell you these things. Excuse me.”

“I work hard to provide food and drink for my children and my martyred brother’s children. My only brother was martyred and left behind five children.”

“My extended family and I am the sole breadwinner. There is no one but me to support them and provide for them. My children and the children of my martyred brother.”

I see in the Palestinian men in Gaza, a reflection of my own father and other men in my life, who care deeply to provide for their families despite all odds. I am heartbroken for them.

Hundreds of people are being massacred everyday by Israel for attempting to get small amounts of food aid set up by American mercenaries under the name of the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”. Many are Palestinian men and boys who have survived 20 months of genocide, only to be killed trying to get food for their starving families. Over 500 people have been killed in the past month alone in this manner – attempting to get food aid for themselves and their families and loved ones.

The international community must use all necessary measures and mechanisms to end the famine and to stop the genocide being perpetrated by Israel and supported by complicit states and parties. Genocide, occupation, and apartheid do not happen within a vacuum. There is an ecosystem that sustains and maintains the status quo – that of Zionist settler colonialism and the ongoing Nakba. We must see an end to these systems and structures that have facilitated and continues to maintain a genocide being live-streamed before our eyes for almost 2 years now.

As for the healthcare system in Palestine, what Gaza and Palestine needs is not endless humanitarian aid or charity, but solidarity. A sovereign self-determined Palestinian-led healthcare system. By the people, for the people.

Thank you. Free Palestine.