Hamilton Visits Rafah Crossing and Calls on Israel to Let Aid Trucks Through
Seven-time Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton visited the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza on Tuesday 10 November, and then said he had seen aid being turned away.
According to The Guardian, Hamilton began in El Arish, on the Egyptian side, where he was briefed on how aid is prepared and coordinated before it is sent into Gaza. He then toured the Rafah crossing and the Egyptian Red Crescent's aid warehouses. At the crossing he greeted aid workers with "Assalamu alaikum", the Arabic greeting for "peace be upon you."
What he described at the border was a queue. Hamilton said food trucks lined up at Rafah are regularly not allowed in, or face major delays. He said the first driver in line he spoke to had already been waiting for more than 12 hours.
He also said he saw sleeping bags, first aid kits, medical equipment, wheelchairs and footballs for children among goods that had been rejected from aid. Standing at the crossing, he said it felt like an open-air prison, with walls stretching for miles, built to keep people in.
The ceasefire sets a benchmark that makes the gap easier to measure. The agreed minimum is 600 trucks a day into Gaza, and current aid levels fall far short of that figure. Hamilton said Israel needs to fulfil its obligations under the ceasefire and let the aid trucks in.
On Wednesday 11 November, Hamilton posted on Instagram that "the past three years of Israel's genocide in Gaza is appalling." The post is his own characterisation. Israel strongly denies accusations of genocide. It says its military campaign in Gaza targets Hamas militants.
Hamilton is one of the most recognisable sportspeople in the world, and his trip put a spotlight on a part of the story that rarely reaches a sports audience. Aid groups have long argued that the flow of food, medicine and shelter supplies into Gaza is the core of the humanitarian problem. Hamilton's visit added a first-hand account of that flow, from the people waiting at the border, rather than a statistic on a page.
