Seven rabbis and peace activists were arrested on Friday near the border with the Gaza Strip after they tried to take food supplies into the territory, according to two participants and the campaign group that organised the effort.

The detainees were among a group of roughly 30 rabbis and activists from Israel and the US who were stopped by police officers as they tried to reach the Erez crossing, a major transit point between Israel and northern Gaza.

Organised by Rabbis for Ceasefire, a peace movement based in the US, the effort was intended to build support for a truce and to highlight rising reports of starvation in Gaza. A global authority on food security, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative, has predicted an imminent famine in northern Gaza, the area of the territory closest to Erez.

The protest was timed to coincide with the week of Passover, a Jewish festival that celebrates the biblical story of the liberation of Jews from slavery in ancient Egypt.

“We were making the point that Jewish liberation is bound up with Palestinian liberation, that we want freedom for all,” said Toba Spitzer, a rabbi from Boston who attended the protest but was not arrested.

The group had tried to drive into Gaza with a pick-up truck carrying half a ton of rice and flour but was stopped roughly one-third of a mile from the border, Spitzer said.

New York Times News Service