Award-winning Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie embarked on a humanitarian trip to Egypt on January 2 to oversee the condition of Israel-restricted relief efforts for the Gaza Strip at the Rafah Crossing, a significant border point with the embattled Palestinian territory.
Jolie’s visit to the Egyptian side of the crossing came as Israel threatened to suspend dozens of international aid groups working in Gaza over their failure to comply with Jerusalem’s new registration rules, which include providing the personal details of staff members.
Humanitarian items held up
In a statement following her visit to the Rafah Crossing, Jolie said she saw a large haul of essential humanitarian items piled up at the frontier amid Israel’s denial of entry.
“I walked through a large warehouse that was full of items that were denied entry, most of them medical,” the actress told CNN.
She also outlined meetings she had with local aid workers, including those from the Egyptian Red Crescent, in which ways to provide additional aid to the devastated enclave were discussed.
“What needs to happen is clear: the ceasefire must hold and access must be sustained, safe and urgently scaled up so that aid, fuel and critical medical supplies can move quickly and consistently at the volume required,” Jolie lamented.
She firmly called for the movement of “winter items” and “essential medical equipment” to Gaza Strip “without delay” as recent flooding and declining temperatures reportedly exacerbate the suffering of internally displaced Palestinians in the two-year-old Israel-Hamas war.
“Every day of disruption costs lives,” the star added.
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Unjustified loss of lives
Jolie has been one of the most influential voices actively speaking out against the suffering of the Palestinian people since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, 2023, when Palestine’s Hamas group led a surprise attack on Israel as part of decades-long unresolved conflict, leaving over 1,000 people dead.
In retaliation, Israel launched countless airstrikes and armed offensives on the civilian-occupied Gaza Strip, killing over 70,000 people to date, many of whom were women and children.
“What happened in Israel is an act of terror,” Jolie wrote on an Instagram post.
“But that cannot justify the innocent lives lost in bombing a civilian population in Gaza that has nowhere to go, no access to food or water, no possibility of evacuation and not even the basic human right to cross a border to seek refuge.”
The Oscar winner worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for 20 years from 2001 and became a special envoy of the institution in 2012.
In December 2022, she stepped down from her role with the UNHCR “to engage on a broader set of humanitarian and human rights issues”, according to an official announcement from the UN agency.
“As one of the most influential proponents of refugee rights, her portfolio will continue to include refugees and issues of forced displacement,” it read.
In addition to the visit to Rafah Crossing, Jolie had also met with Palestinian and Sudanese refugees in Egypt during Friday’s humanitarian trip, revealed her office.
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