Charity Says Egypt Intelligence-Linked Firm Charging $5,000 per Truck to Get Aid Into Gaza
Via Middle East Eye
An international charity with extensive experience in providing emergency aid in wars, famines and earthquakes throughout the Middle East and in Afghanistan is being forced to pay $5,000 a truck to a company linked to Egypt’s General Intelligence Service (GIS) to get aid into Gaza.
The charity, which does not want to be named to avoid obstruction to its relief efforts in Gaza, spoke to Middle East Eye in outrage at having to pay what it openly describes as a bribe to a state-linked agent.
A spokesman for the charity said: “We have worked around the world in times of war, earthquakes and other disasters, but we have never been treated like this by a state who is profiteering from the dispatch of humanitarian goods. It’s draining a lot of our resources and the bribe being paid is per truck.”
The charity said the money is being paid in the form of a “management fee” to a company affiliated with the Sons of Sinai, a construction and contracting firm owned by the Sinai businessman, Ibrahim al-Organi, and part of his Organi Group.
He heads the Tarabin tribe in the Sinai desert bordering Israel and owns a company that is a joint venture with two companies owned by the GIS. The Organi Group is alleged in media reports to be the ultimate beneficiary of a lucrative sale of “fast-track” permits for Palestinians wishing to escape from Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.
An investigation carried out by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and independent Egyptian website, Saheeh Masr, found that intermediaries were selling exit permits at prices ranging from $4,500 to $10,000 for Palestinians and $650 to $1,200 for Egyptians.
As desperation in Gaza has increased, the price for a passage out of the enclave has gone up to $10,000 per person, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported recently. The price for commercial traffic going into Gaza charged by companies owned by Organi is $9,000 a truck, although the cost of the fare charged by truckers is commonly just $300 a load.
A spokesperson for Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees providing vital support in Gaza, told Middle East Eye it is not paying fees to transfer aid into the enclave from Egypt.
Bleak situation
The charity’s statement to MEE is the first concrete evidence of Egypt or Egyptian government-linked parties demanding a cut from the humanitarian aid going into Gaza, which already is subject to weeklong delays incurred by Israel.
Earlier this month, James Heappey, the British minister of state for the armed forces, said that over 150 tonnes of humanitarian aid delivered to Egypt by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is waiting to be transferred into Gaza.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza is bleak. More than 26,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed since the war broke out in October, and on Sunday, a UN expert said famine in the enclave was “inevitable”.
Last week, Middle East Eye spoke to five families from Gaza who all confirmed that they had paid fees in the thousands, mostly in US dollars or euros, to mediators who then facilitated their exit from Gaza. Besan, a Palestinian who arranged for her mother to leave Gaza, said of her Suez-based mediator: “He told us that he works with Egyptian security and that he would pull strings to put our mother’s name on the list.”
Egypt denied it is profiteering from this trade at the Rafah border. In a statement published on January 10, the head of Egypt’s State Information Service, Diaa Rashwan, rejected the “unfounded allegations” that additional fees are being imposed on Palestinians at the crossing.
A parallel “fast-track” system for getting through Rafah has been in place for years, with Gaza-based agents demanding several thousand dollars for quick passage. But this market has boomed since Israel’s ground attack started and the desperation of internally displaced Palestinians has grown.
