José Manuel Maroto Blanco learnt that a march was being organised to go to Gaza from Egypt, with the goal of reaching the border and demanding an end to the humanitarian blockade.

They are also calling for the “end to the genocide.” Feeling a moral obligation to participate and having checked his funds and available free time, he decided to support this expedition, not with just words, but also with his boots.

So, he set off for Cairo, arriving this week to meet up with the Spanish contingent. Kitted out with a sleeping bag, good walking shoes and plenty of conviction, he has 50 kilometres ahead of him.

José Manuel is 32-year-old and from the city of Granada, where he studied History at the university there. He holds a doctorate in Programa de Estudios Migratorios and is also a member of the Departamento de Historia Contemporánea at Granada University, as well as the Instituto de La Paz y los Conflictos and the Observatorio de Estudios Africanos.

Like many people who view the images of suffering amongst the civilian population of Gaza, he was deeply moved but unable to do anything about it until he heard of the Global March to Gaza. People from all over the word are participating in this peacefully march to the Egyptian/Gaza border.

If the march achieves nothing then at least, he feels, the people of Gaza will know that they are not alone. He firmly believes that this is the most important struggle of his generation.

Being a historian he points out that this conflict did not begin on the 7th of October 2023, when Hamas carried out the bloody terrorist attack against Israel, but goes back to 1948 when the Nakba occurred, with the expulsion of more than half of the Palestinian population from their territory.

José Manuel knows that the march to the border contains much uncertainty and knows that he might well end up being arrested along with his companions by the Egyptian police. But he is a man who has travelled to several African countries run by dictatorships so it won’t be the first time that somebody has pointed a machine gun at him or takes his passport away.

(News: City & Metropolitan Area, Granada, Andalucia – Source: Ideal/Laura Velasco)

Keywords: Global March, Gaza, Egypt, Genocide, Nakbar, Terrorist Attack, Hamas

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