An international coalition called the Global March to Gaza composed of labor unions, solidarity and human rights organizations — nearly 200 groups from over 50 countries — set June 15 as the day volunteers would set up an encampment at the Rafah crossing into the Gaza Strip.
Al-Soumoud Convoy bound for Gaza reaches Libya, June 10, 2025.
They intend to disrupt Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and to put pressure on world leaders to stop talking and start acting. They are also bringing some practical aid.
The 4,000 volunteers from the Global March, paying their own expenses, flew into Cairo on June 12. They then took buses to Arish, a small Egyptian city on the Sinai coast. In Arish, they were to meet the overland contingent, the Maghreb Resilience Convoy called Al-Soumoud (The Steadfast) and march by foot to Rafah together.
The Al-Soumoud Convoy consisted of 13 buses and 300 vehicles carrying nearly 1,000 militants from Tunis through Libya and Egypt. Al-Soumoud is supported by the Tunisian General Labor Union, some progressive lawyers, human rights associations and the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights. Some prominent Algerian parliamentarians have joined Al-Soumoud as individuals. The Coalition of Joint Action for Palestine in Tunisia began organizing to physically express its solidarity with Gaza in early May. Al-Soumoud left Tunis June 12.
The volunteers of the Steadfast Convoy were warmly greeted as they passed through North African towns on the way to Gaza. When it stopped in Libyan coastal towns, they were given food, water and fuel and much support.
The Egyptian government said it would not permit the convoy to go to Rafah and has deported some volunteers. On June 15, AlJazeera News reported that the thousands of international pro-Palestine activists were blocked from reaching Egypt’s Rafah border crossing and forcefully dispersed, with some detained.
There was close coordination between the Tunisian movement and the Global March in the planning and logistics of such a complicated action. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which sponsored the Madleen — the ship trying to break Israel’s blockade, which was seized by the Israeli Navy in international waters June 9 — was not part of the Global March to Gaza, but it did tell Global March when it was planning to act.
Both the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and the Global March feel that the time for verbal condemnations of Israel’s genocidal policies in Gaza has ended. Actions are what is required.