Police Arrest Rabbis Demanding Cease-Fire at Rally Near Gaza-Israel Border

Seven rabbis and bid activists were arrested connected Friday adjacent the borderline with Gaza aft they tried to instrumentality nutrient supplies into the territory, according to 2 participants and the run radical that organized the effort.

The detainees were among a radical of astir 30 rabbis and activists from Israel and the United States who were stopped by constabulary officers arsenic they tried to scope the Erez crossing, a large transit constituent betwixt Israel and bluish Gaza.

Organized by Rabbis for Ceasefire, a bid question based successful the United States, the effort was intended to physique enactment for a truce and to item rising reports of starvation successful Gaza. A planetary authorization connected nutrient security, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative, has predicted an imminent famine successful bluish Gaza, the country of the territory closest to Erez.

The protestation was timed to coincide with the week of Passover, a Jewish festival that celebrates the biblical communicative of the liberation of Jews from slavery successful past Egypt.

“We were making the constituent that Jewish liberation is bound up with Palestinian liberation, that we privation state for all,” said Toba Spitzer, a rabbi from Boston who attended the protestation but was not arrested.

The radical had tried to thrust into Gaza with a pickup motortruck carrying fractional a ton of atom and flour but was stopped astir a 3rd of a mile from the border, Rabbi Spitzer said. The effort was mostly symbolic and the organizers expected it to neglect fixed the restrictions on the border; the supplies volition present beryllium donated to needy Palestinians successful the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Rabbi Spitzer said.

The Israeli constabulary did not respond to requests for comment.

There are wide nutrient shortages successful Gaza. Israeli restrictions connected wherever convoys tin participate the strip, Israeli bombardment and wide harm to roads, the illness of Gazan agriculture, and a breakdown successful instrumentality and bid person each made it harder to administer assistance safely.

Aid groups and United Nations officials person accused Israel of systematically limiting assistance delivery. Israel denies the assertion, blaming the shortages connected logistical failures by assistance groups, and has precocious accrued the fig of trucks entering the strip.

Israeli officials accidental that the Erez crossing, which was chiefly utilized for pedestrian postulation earlier the war, is hard to usage for assistance transportation due to the fact that it lacks the close infrastructure and was besides severely damaged during the Hamas-led raid connected Israel successful October.

A bulk of Jewish Israelis reason the transportation of much assistance to Gaza, according to a poll conducted successful February by the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based probe group.

Israeli protesters regularly stitchery astatine different crossing constituent farther south, trying to artifact assistance convoys entering Gaza.