This came during the North Sinai governor tour with Senators Van Hollen and Merkley's tour of the Arish logistics hub of the Egyptian Red Crescent (ERC), the leading Egyptian organization which delivers aid to Palestinians in the strip in collaboration with the United Nations and its humanitarian partners.
The governor said aid convoys to Gaza face waits of two to three months, and some shipments are rejected by the Israelis without explanation.
Despite this, Megawer insisted that Egypt will continue sending assistance as a strategic commitment, vowing: “We will never give up.”
“Sometimes the food rots before it enters. This is dangerous ... If these people do not eat, they have only three options: go to Israel for aid and Israel bombs them, or they jump into the Mediterranean Sea and then come to Egyptian land — and that is another red line for Egypt”
He explained to the two Senators that some 5,400 trucks have been backed up in North Sinai waiting to deliver food, water, and medicine to starving Palestinians in Gaza because of the Israeli blockade and their delaying of the entry of relief to the strip through the Karm Abu Salem crossing.
Since late July, the Egyptian Red Crescent, in collaboration with UN partners, has dispatched two dozen aid convoys to Gaza through the Karm Abu Salem crossing with the strip.
The Israeli side has slowed down the entry of much of the relief to the strip through endless inspections of trucks and even arrests of truck drivers.
The visitors with ERC staff and volunteers. AP
The senators' visit to Arish and Rafah comes amid growing global outrage against the 22-month-old Israeli war and blockade of the Gaza Strip.
It comes two weeks after the United Nations declared that Palestinians are now facing famine in the Gaza Strip.
The United Nations agencies estimate that by the end of September, some 640,000 people in Gaza could be experiencing famine-level hunger, with another one million at “emergency” levels of food insecurity.
The UN also warned that the number of children facing life-threatening risks has tripled since last May, with projections reaching 43,400 by June 2026.
At least 322 Palestinians — more than a third of them children — have already died from malnutrition since Israel’s genocidal war on the strip began in October 2023, with most of these deaths occurring amid the most recent five-month Israeli blockade.
On saturday, for his part, Senator Van Hollen said he and Senator Merkley thanked Megawer for his efforts in delivering the aid to the Gaza Strip.
"We are calling for the release of the captives and ending the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza," he added.
Senators Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley, among the most outspoken in their party against Israel’s blockade and the man-made famine unfolding in Gaza, are visiting Egypt as part of a broader Mideast tour that also includes Israel, the occupied West Bank, and Jordan.
Van Hollen, a senior member of the Senate foreign relations and appropriations committees, has recently described life in the Gaza Strip as “hell on earth”, calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to immediately restore the United Nations-led aid distribution.
He has led more than 20 Democratic Senators in urging the Trump administration to halt funding for the controversial US-Israeli so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), where Israeli soldiers have killed hundreds of desperate aid seekers since mid-May.
Van Hollen has described the GHF operation as a “death trap” for Palestinians and demanded that the delivery of aid to the strip be restored to United Nations (UN) agencies.
On Tuesday, during the two senators' visit to the occupied West Bank, Van Hollen urged “an end to this continued settler violence.”
“We need to end the war in Gaza and bring the hostages home,” he added.
Egypt has repeatedly called on the international community to pressure Israel to open all border crossings with Gaza to allow for the entry of aid to the strip.
Israel has closed all border crossings to Gaza since 2 march and allowed only a trickle of the aid needed by 2.4 million Palestinians to pass into the strip.
In mid-August, Egypt and Qatar have delivered a truce proposal to Israel, which was accepted by Hamas and previously approved by Tel Aviv. Israel has yet to respond.
The Palestinian health ministry says Israel’s war has killed more than 63,000 people and injured 160,000, the majority women and children. Over 9,000 remain missing beneath the rubble.
Megawer also briefed the senators on medical evacuations coordinated through Rafah before its closure earlier this year.
“We received 150 people every day, where they would arrive at the gate belonging to the Gaza Strip. It was controlled by the authority in Gaza and also a group from the European Union. They used to stamp the papers and we coordinated with them,” the governor said.
There, ERC teams carried out health checks and vaccinations for children before transferring the injured to hospitals in Sinai and beyond.
“We determine what are the needs of the injured person. After that, we evacuate them through this gate by ambulances,” he said, noting that patients were sent to hospitals in North Sinai, Ismailia, Port Said, or directly to Cairo depending on urgency.
The governor added that many displaced Palestinians remain stranded in border areas, “eager to return to the Gaza Strip if we reach an agreement.”
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