What activists hope to achieve with the 'Global March to Gaza'

Middle East Eye

19 hours ago

Activists around the world say they have had enough.
With more than 54,000 Palestinians killed, thousands more buried under rubble and unaccounted for, tens of thousands of others injured, maimed, and orphaned, and with close to the entire population of the besieged strip being starved, activists say it's time to take matters into their own hands.
Even if it means knocking on the gates around Gaza.
On 12 June, between 2,000 and 3,000 activists from close to 50 countries worldwide are expected to descend on Cairo to pressure the international community to force Israel to end the bombardment and siege of Gaza, which human rights groups and scholars have unanimously called a genocide.
The Global March on Gaza, as it has come to be known, will see activists make their way to the city of al-Arish in the Sinai and embark on a march to the border with Gaza, where they will camp for three days to urge authorities to allow aid to be let in.
Who are the activists travelling to Egypt to participate in the march? Why do they feel so strongly about making the journey to Egypt from all around the world? And what are the prospects of success?
Middle East Eye looks at the Global March on Gaza and why so many groups around the world are backing the initiative.
What is the Global March to Gaza?
The Global March to Gaza is made up of a conglomeration of organisations from around the world and describes itself as a "civic, apolitical, and independent movement".
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Organisations that endorsed the march, include the international organisations the International Healthworkers Alliance for Justice; Masafer Yatta Solidarity Alliance from Palestine; Palestinian Youth movement; Codepink Women for Peace in the US; Jewish Voice for Labour in the UK; The Million Rural Women and the Landless Association in Tunisia; India Palestine Solidarity Forum; as well as the Irish Anti-War Movement, among others.
The group says that it does not represent any political party, ideology or religion and that its only guiding principles are "justice, human dignity, and peace".
More than 400 groups around the world have endorsed the march, with organisers expecting more to enrol in the coming days.
Saif AbuKeshek, chair of the international committee of the Global March to Gaza, said the motivation for the march was born out of an idea to have likeminded people gather outside Gaza to send a message to governments around the world that its citizens were no longer able to tolerate its silence as a people continued to be annihilated.
"Citizens are not okay with them just being silenced [or the] silence toward the genocide," AbuKeshek said.
AbuKeshek added that citizens were growing increasingly agitated with governments making excuses for their inaction or defending the long litany of well-documented crimes Israel has committed against Palestinians.
"That's where our pressure is going: for the international complicity in the genocide," he added.
Displaced Palestinians carrying bags of relief supplies return from aid distribution centres in Rafah to their tents in the southern Gaza Strip, on 29 May 2025 (AFP)
What are organisers hoping to achieve?
For more than 11 weeks between early March and the end of May, Israel blocked all aid into Gaza, including food, medicines and fuel, which pushed Gaza to the verge of famine, with some areas already crossing the threshold of famine itself.
Currently, one in five Palestinians in Gaza is living in a state of famine.
The food shortage has already resulted in the death of 57 children since March; 71,000 children under the age of five will be acutely malnourished over the next eleven months.
The devastation has wreaked unquantifiable harm on those already injured or struggling with chronic illnesses.
A cascade of emaciated Palestinian children and dismembered bodies continues to flood social media as Israel continues to bombard the territory.
Organisers say the mobilisation of thousands of citizens from around the world is an attempt to exert pressure on governments with the power to force Israel to put an immediate stop to the crisis and to persuade the international community to open up the Egyptian border with Gaza.
Organisers say the pressure notwithstanding, there will be no forceful breach of the fences surrounding Gaza.
They say Israel is only likely to be moved if countries cut off economic or diplomatic ties.
This is what they are hoping to communicate to the countries represented by the several thousand citizens who make their way to the march, they said.
"What we hope is basically to have this global effort from people, citizens, activists, people who are in the
health sector, people who are lawyers and in legal framework organisations, unions - anyone who basically believes that there should be a collective effort and act to stop genocide and stop the bombings of Gaza," AbuKeshek added.
Has Israel manufactured a famine in Gaza? Read More »
Crucially, they hope the march will allow people around the world to recognise the call for the end to the war on Gaza as a collective will of the planet.
"It is essential that everyone participating goes back to demand their governments and corporations implement arms, trade, energy embargos, sports, cultural and academic boycotts to hit the genocidal state of Israel economically and strike at the heart of their white supremacist Zionist ideology," Roshan Dadoo, spokesperson with the South African Boycott Divestment and Sanction Coalition, one of the several hundred organisations that have endorsed the march, told MEE.
Is the march an effective use of resources?
With so many needs in Gaza, there have been some concerns over whether a march to Gaza, involving international flights, accommodation and equipment, is an effective use of resources.
AbuKeshek told MEE it was important to recognise that the crisis in Gaza was not due to a shortage of aid, but was due to the wilful effort of the Israeli government to destroy a population through continual bombardment of homes, hospitals and refugee sites, as well as the through the denial of urgent and necessary aid into Gaza.
He noted that over the past several days, Israel has even attacked several aid distribution points, killing more than 100 Palestinians in the past week alone.
"Having aid is part of fulfilling the needs of the civilians in Gaza. But stopping the genocide and having all the Israeli occupation forces leaving Gaza and opening borders to allow for those trucks to enter without it being used by Israel as a weapon or blackmail against a civilian population is what is needed," AbuKeshek said.
"There are more than 3,000 trucks just waiting on the street," he added.
Likewise, Hannah Claire Smith, an activist and content creator from the United States who is taking part in the march, said that it didn't have to be a question of sending aid or supporting the march.
"I'll also say that a lot of participants who are joining in this march are hoping to connect with Palestinian families in Cairo or the organisations that take care of displaced Palestinians in Cairo, and donate and organise to donate to things as well. So this is not necessarily an either or situation," Smith said.
Smith said that this was a crucial moment to mobilise as conditions deteriorate.
"So this is a way for us to escalate. It's a way for us to approach action in a new way and hopefully be taken seriously by the governments that remain complicit or silent in this genocide," Smith added.
Who is participating, and where will it take place?
According to organisers, around 2,000-3,000 people from 50 countries around the world are expected to make their way to Egypt.
Ana Rita, an activist from Portugal, told MEE that she was participating in the march because it felt like time was running out - not just for the people of Gaza, but for the world.
"It looks like we are living this parallel reality where suddenly the whole world turns upside down. Where is our humanity? How can we continue living our normal lives, seeing a genocide happening in front of us and not doing anything?" Rita asked rhetorically.
Likewise, Smith said she decided to participate because she wanted her government, as well as other western governments and all governments complicit or participating in the ongoing subjugation of Palestinians, to force Israel to end the calamity unfolding in Gaza.
Dadoo, from South Africa, said the march "signified how the majority of people in the world stand with Palestinian people and their struggle for liberation from settler colonialism, apartheid and illegal occupation from the river to the sea".
Participants will arrive in Cairo before taking a bus to al-Arish, a city around 344 kilometres away in the Sinai.
The march itself will begin in al-Arish, and participants will make the journey of 48km towards Rafah over two to three days, travelling during the cooler hours of the day and sleeping in tents at night.
The tents will be left as part of the aid package for the people of Gaza.
The group is expected to camp for three days before returning by bus to Cairo on 19 June.
Has Egypt given permission for the march?
For the past few weeks, as word began to spread of an imminent march to Gaza, several delegations reportedly met with Egyptian embassy officials around the globe to discuss plans for a march.
As of the first week of June, the Egyptian government has neither provided explicit permission for the march to go ahead, nor has it signalled its opposition.
Some of the volunteers arriving in Egypt for the protest said that they were hoping to use their privilege as passport holders from western countries to draw attention to the cause.
"It's not going to be feasible for Egyptians necessarily to join this, or for Palestinians in Egypt to join this, or for Palestinians that don't have another nationality to join this movement," Smith said.
"But for those of us who have passport privilege, for those of us who can use that as a way to gain attention into this horrific situation and into these war crimes and these atrocities, then I want to leverage that to the best of my abilities, and so that's another reason that I'm joining," Smith said.
What is likely to happen?
That the march will result in Israel being pressured to end the siege and bombardment is unlikely.
Activists understand the journey itself is perilous, given the potential for Israeli interference as well as the unpredictability of the Egyptian forces.
Will the march prove to be a success or not? Organisers say they don't know until they try.
"We are all going to be accountable for what is happening today in Gaza. We all are going to be asked the question, 'What have you done? What have you done in your lifetime? What have you done while genocide was running in front of your eyes?'" AbuKeshek said.
"Gaza is the last stand of humanity today. There is nothing going to be left of us if we are going to just continue to be silent.
"Palestinians have been fighting and struggling to defend our values and principles that societies as civilisations were built on - while we are betraying those by allowing genocide to be committed in front of our eyes - we are going to defend our own dignity."