Gaza-bound aid convoy dissolves in Libya after activists arrested at Sirte crossing, ten in custody
A Gaza-bound activist land convoy was dissolved in Libya on Thursday, after it was denied entry into the eastern half of the country and ten of its activists were arrested, according to statements by the Global Sumud Flotilla and the Government of National Stability (GNS) Foreign Ministry.
The Global Sumud Land Convoy, which was launched to complement the failed Gaza flotilla blockade run, said in a press release that it had been forced to conclude its journey across northern Africa to Gaza due to bureaucratic obfuscation, violence, and the detention of activists.
On Monday night, the day after the 10 activists were arrested, GSF claimed that the 200 participants camped several kilometers from the Sirte crossing were encircled by unmarked vehicles. Members of the convoy were allegedly physically assaulted and then forced to evacuate.
The activists had been arrested last Sunday, according to GSF, after they had traveled to a Sirte checkpoint to negotiate with eastern Libyan authorities.
The Foreign Ministry of the GNS, the faction that holds authority over eastern Libya, said in a Monday missive that the activists were arrested en route to Gaza without completing the legal procedures and obtaining a permit for entry. The authorities assured that the detainees were being given care in accordance with humanitarian principles.
The GNS body said that it supported the Palestinian cause, but that the border crossings shared by Libya and Egypt were restricted to citizens of those states.
A single strategy operating on multiple fronts simultaneously
GSF called for the release of its activists and for the intervention of the countries from which they hailed: Spain, Poland, Italy, Argentina, Uruguay, Portugal, Tunisia, and the USA.
The 30 vehicles, which included 20 mobile homes and 7 ambulances, had set out from Zalitan on May 16, but announced that they had stopped outside Sirte on May 17.
GSF said that they had attempted to negotiate with the GNS on May 19, offering to give the humanitarian aid they had been transporting to the Libyan Red Crescent.
The Libyan Red Crescent would ostensibly deliver the aid with a limited number of activists. The 10-person delegation had set out after receiving no response from the authorities.
“The land and sea missions are not parallel efforts that happened to coincide. They are a single strategy operating on multiple fronts simultaneously. We continue because we must,” GSF said in a Thursday statement.
“We explore every pathway available to confront the siege and genocide, because inaction is complicity and complicity has a cost, and that cost is too high. The flotilla continues. Land actions continue. Legal actions continue. Solidarity continues. Until the siege is broken and every person is free.”
The flotilla of 54 vessels had been intercepted by Israeli naval forces on May 18 and 19, and all participants have since been deported from Israel. Like the land convoy, the flotilla sought to challenge an Egyptian and Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The previous land convoy in June had also stopped at Sirte, where it later disbanded after Libyan forces refused to let them pass.
