LEE SIU HIN-Report from Cairo Our Third September 16-21, 2024 Chinese Activist-Based Panda Aid for Gaza Medical Humanitarian Mission 2024
PART TWO: LEE SIU HIN China’s Panda Aid visit and donate items to The Network for Palestine, a Palestinian Refugee Rescue Organization in Cairo, Egypt, with Our Support and Love
李小轩 Lee Siu Hin
熊猫支援 Panda Aid
中美民间交流协会 China-US Solidarity Network
September 28th, 2024
This is our September 16 to 21, 2024 third delegation to Turkey and Egypt for Gaza’s medical humanitarian mission, on September 18, in Cairo, Egypt, we went to the Network for Palestine, located in the eastern suburbs of Cairo. They are a rescue organization composed of a group of Palestinians and Westerners in Egypt to help local Palestinian refugees.
According to statistics from the Palestinian Authority (PA) this summer, since the "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation on October 7 last year and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza, by June this year, about 100,000 to 115,000 Gaza refugees had fled to Egypt (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/29/egypt-palestinians-gaza-war-refugees/). Since the Gaza-Egypt border is completely militarized and guarded by a high wall, refugees cannot jump over the wall to escape to Egypt. They all enter Egypt by applying for visas. The procedures are very complicated and expensive. Each person needs to apply for $5,000 “fee”(by comparison, an international tourist only need to pay 25USD fees at the Cairo Airport for their visa), and no one knows where money ends up. Recently, the “fee“ has soared to $15,000. It is a scheme by various interest groups to make money by taking advantage of the desperate people.
When refugees get visas to enter Egypt, they can only carry a suitcase or so, so they have nothing left in Egypt.
The Gazans who can afford to apply for visas to escape to Egypt are generally the upper middle class in the local area, but only become refugees with nothing left in Egypt. Because they have no legal status, they cannot work, cannot enjoy Egypt's public medical care, etc., and their lives are extremely difficult. They can only rely on the support of overseas relatives and friends.
In Egypt, there are many local caring groups (local caring people have established several WhatsApp support groups) to crowdfund donations to support their basic life, medical treatment and renting houses.
In the mutual aid circle established by local Egyptians, stranded Palestinian refugees and overseas people, Network for Palestine is one of them. Unlike other groups who mainly communicate through friends or the Internet to get help, they have established their own community center to provide in-person services.
They have a 400 square meters (4000 square ft) four-story building offered by caring people in Cairo, to establish a community center dedicated to the relief of Palestinian refugees.
The center was opened to the public after simple repairs at the beginning of this year in response to the refugee crisis caused by latest round of war.
Aid items are mainly through donations from caring people, providing Gaza refugees with various daily necessities, food, clothes, etc. basic needed for living in Egypt, as well as regular offering free medical consultations, rental subsidies and other services.
The ground floor is used for donated food and furniture, the 2nd and 3rd floors are used for donated clothes, toys, milk powder, etc., and there are community activity centers upstairs.
We are deeply impressed by their good work, as well as call to support both refuges inside Gaza, and Gaza refugees stranded in Cairo. In addition to supporting Gaza medical humanitarian projects, we also raise funds to purchase supplies and donate to the Center.
Lists of requested donations could be different each time based on different periods and their different needs. During our second missions in June, they asked to donate mattresses, size 5 baby diapers, kitchen utensils, tableware, food processers, etc., totaling about several US dollars of supplies. We went to the wholesale market in Egypt to buy them ourselves and pulled a truck to deliver them to their building for donation.
For this trip, because everyone had experience, they arranged us to go to a hardware store nearby that they were familiar with and use credit cards to purchase supplies, including: household cleaning products, size 5 baby diapers, sanitary napkins, soaps, men's underwear, sports shoes, etc., and arranged for the store owner to deliver the goods to the Center, saving a lot of logistical trouble.
We are not the only organization that donates items to them. They often have many different organizations donating a lot of materials, which are piled up in the community center waiting to be distributed to refugees. But we are the first and so far, the only Chinese non-governmental organization that actively supports their work and donates materials. They are very grateful for the love and supports from the Chinese people.
We committed with them that will continue to support their work in the future, because it is not easy for them. Since the organization is composed of Palestinian refugees in Egypt, it is not convenient for them to appear on camera or be interviewed. Therefore, when we’re filming their large community center, although there were many people inside, they asked us not to film the exterior of the building (so there is no photo of the whole community center) or film any person’s face (in the video, it seems that there is no one in the building).
This time we learned more about their project, and it’s much better organized than three months ago.
My conclusion:
Everything had both side of stories: good, bad and ugly. At the critical moment, it is a test of our humanity. Throughout our mission, we encountered many people who dedicated their love to support other people, but also encountered many scams and ugliness such as selfishness, greed, abuse, and fraud in the face of disaster.
This may be what a wise person once told me: Good people always finish last, only sincerity can reach us to the end. There‘re also famous quotes form Zheng Banqiao (ancient Chinese poet) from my late mother's Chinese hometown, which is also our family motto: "It is good to be confused, and it is a blessing to suffer losses." (难得糊涂，吃亏是福)
When we arrived to Egypt, they were very surprised because they said that we were the first humanitarian group from China they had ever seen, and they also asked me about the attitude of the Chinese people towards the Palestinian issue. In fact, I was also very speechless, because historically and now, China has always strong supporters the Palestinian people in politics, economy, and humanitarian aids for many years, and there are also many individual actions in the private sector to support Gaza. But because Europe and the United States control everything in Palestine by supporting "Israel" (in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, they still cannot have their own currency and Internet, and can only reply on Israel), Western countries also firmly control the entire humanitarian work of Palestine in their hands, resulting in the United States being both Israel's largest military aid doner, also Palestine's largest "aid" country. As a result, they can play both side of the fence, to control both narratives of supporting Israeli genocide while how to aid “aid” Palestine in their own hands. As a result, by putting their own people into every international humanitarian organizations and the United Nations organizations, they can treat other third world countries, including China's support and influence, as if they never existed in the region, and can be ignored from the public views.
My report hopes to clarify everyone's misunderstanding and doubts about our project and our work, and hopes that everyone can support our Panda Aid’s Gaza Humanitarian Medical Support Project. This humanitarian project has caused me piled up a lot of big-ass debt, and I have been coitized and misunderstood by others every day, but as long as our small efforts can save and help Gaza, help to spread positive Chinese images in the region, and to set a positive sample to everyone, I think it's worth it!
As of today (September 28th) “Israel” with U.S. supports, had launched massive bombing in Lebanon, assassinate Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and many others, while “Israel” continue attacks across Gaza kills another 20 people, or at least 41,586 people since October 7th last year. Genocide Joe Biden quickly responds by repeats U.S. ‘fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself’ while Russia says “Israel” bears full responsibility for ‘almost inevitable’ military escalation to the region
(https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/9/28/israel-attacks-lebanon-deaths-mount-as-beirut-buildings-bombed-to).
Never underestimate the long-term impact of this war on us in the future.
It is likely that in the near future we will need to support humanitarian operations in Lebanon in addition to Gaza.
Because helping them is also helping us, only when we have a community with a shared future for mankind, can we have a common and beautiful future.
People of the World United Will Never Be Defeated!
About Lee Siu Hin 李小轩
Lee Siu Hin, a Chinese-American immigrant activist from Los Angeles, CA, is the founder and national coordinator of the China-U.S. Solidarity Network (CUSN), National Immigrant Solidarity Network (NISN) and the Panda Aid. He is a long-time community, labor, antiwar and immigrant rights activist for grassroots struggle. He's also a long-time Pacifica Radio KPFK Los Angeles unpaid reporter and producer and war correspondent who has worked in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa.
NISN is a grassroots-based national immigrant activist network, and CUSN is a network of academic and community activists in both countries committed to building a China-U.S. grassroots activist dialogue. Panda Aid is a Chinese-activist run international humanitarian organization.
Lee holds a Masters of Public Administration (MPA) and a Masters of Engineering (Aerospace) from California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, located in Pomona, CA.
He is currently working on medical IT technology for the inner-city community, and for the global south. He travels frequently between China and U.S. for the activism work.
His latest book “Capitalism on a Ventilator” was co-published with Sara Flounders in September 2020; the Chinese edition was released in January 2022. He contributed to “Sanctions: a wrecking ball in a global economy” published in December 2022 and produced the documentary “Vaccine and Sanctions” released on February, 2023.
His second documentary “Voice of Xinjiang” still under production, a short version was released on December, 2023.
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