CAIRO: A 60-member Gaza aid delegation from the United States and Canada will attempt to enter the Strip today via the Rafah border crossing in commemoration of International Women’s Day.

The trip is organized by the Code Pink organization, a grassroots women’s initiative initially founded to oppose the US war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Code Pink cofounder Medea Benjamin and Ann Wright, a former US diplomat and military officer, had visited Gaza early February. They felt ashamed to “have seen the shells and ammunition reading ‘made in the USA’,” said Wright, who is also part of the delegation, noting that it was “our tax money” that was used to buy these weapons.

Benjamin noted that although the US had pledged $300 million to the rebuilding of Gaza, it has given Israel $3 billion which were used for weapons. “Ten times as much for building as for killing,” one delegate added.

There is currently another American delegation comprised of nine people who have been prevented entry into Gaza via the crossing. On Thursday they set up tents and started a vigil in front of the crossing.

Benjamin said in a press conference in Cairo Thursday, “We got tents and we told everybody we might not be able to get in and we might have to camp out at the border. We are ready to do that and if we don’t get in, it really makes the Egyptian government look very bad.”

“We’re not doing it to challenge the (Egyptian) government, we’re doing it because we want to get in,” she added, “and we think they have an obligation to allow us to go in.”

The delegation will also include novelist Alice Walker and the parents of Rachel Corrie; the activist who was killed in Palestine by Israeli Defense Forces six years ago.

The delegation is carrying with it 2,000 gift baskets for the people of Gaza and are traveling at the invitation of the UN Relief and Works Agency for its Gaza Gender Initiative. 

They had considered bringing in food, but UN workers in the Palestinian Territories suggested a more uplifting gift basket to the women of Gaza who had been traumatized by the war but still were looking after others, Benjamin said.

The basket contains shampoo bottles,  scarves, toothpaste and other similar gifts.

There is also a third delegation led by British MP George Galloway which entered Egypt Thursday from Libya and will also be traveling to Rafah in an attempt to enter Gaza.