Miriam Zouzounis

At around 2 am last night the Secret Police surrounded our hotel and came up asking to meet with the arabic speaker members of our delegations. Several members from the canadian delegation and new york delegation met in a fairly confrontational meeting where they said that none of the delegations were cleared to enter the border and that going today would be pointless. they also said they heard we were going to demonstrate and warned us against taking any actions of protest including holding banners, singing, etc.

The secret police also in the 'meeting' made personal threats to the memebers of the delegations of arab descent and that have family in the territories, saying that if they went to the border today they would not be allowed in Palestinian territories again.

This morning we decided to continue on our way to the border despite their threat of maybe stopping us at the checkpoints along the way. This could be all scare tactics from the police forces and the higher political authorities may have no connection to this at all as our codepink leaders back in cairo are meeting with Yasser Usthman, ambassador/director of palestinian affairs in the egyptian foreign ministry at 11 AM today. we are told he is the main person who has already cleared all our names to enter and we are reaffirming with him today at this meeting to inform the border again.

We made it to the first checkpoint and were told that military 'drills' are being conducted along the road and that it was military orders it was closed. (despite the clear passing of other vehicles back and forth). There was also riot police trucks on hand next to the checkpoint. We were told we could not stay and wait either and that we had to turn around and go back to the hotels.

We are now back at the hotel, meeting with egyptian activists soon and contacting all media resources.

We were informed yesterday that we had clearance to enter in them morning today, we were told also that because the Hope delegation had cleared the border area that we could now pass.

We have also been informed about Israel decision to expand the buffer zone along Gaza. Leaflets have been dropped along the Strip yesterday and today informing the residents of this operation. This may be an indication of a violent military operation along the whole buffer zone, meaning another reason they are preventing foreigners from entering at this time.

More updates on our plan of action to come.

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From: Miriam Zouzounis
Subject: Update on CodePink delegations: 40 person student, canadian, new york
To: nhkassass
Cc: intmorb
Date: Tuesday, May 26, 2009, 11:04 AM