The WhatsApp messages began to circulate around 5:30 p.m. A new aid convoy was on its way from Jordan, filled with goods for Gaza. The trucks would likely arrive around 11 p.m. That was the time to be ready, wrote Reut Ben Haim,
First, cars pulled out in front of the trucks, slowing their highway speed to 40 kilometres an hour. When the convoy’s chosen route became clear, people on the ground were directed to a dusty intersection in the desert of southern. Within minutes, dozens had taken position on the road, some waving flags, some pushing into place a barrier of stones.
After months with so little food that many resorted to eating cattle fodder, the aid represents a critical lifeline. Outside of wild herbs, local sources of sustenance no longer exist in Gaza. Those who joined the late-night blockade this week included a middle-school principal and his two daughters, men returning from a soccer match, teenage high-school students, an army reservist and Hadar Persoff, a 21-year-old university student who drove an hour and a half with her husband and two-month-old infant to join.
Decades of violence has claimed lives of both Israelis and Palestinians, although far more Palestinians have been killed.Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200Ms. Persoff nodded toward the lengthy queue of trucks idling behind the protesters.
Police eventually arrested several demonstrators – but once trucks passed through the first blockade, a second formed down the road. It was not until after 6 a.m., with the sun clearing the horizon, that the trucks were able to proceed freely.