Before Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 and the war that followed, the Kerem Shalom crossing was the main commercial crossing between Israel and Gaza. Today it is one of only two entry points for life-saving food and medicine into the besieged enclave, where aid agencies say civilians are on the brink of starvation.
But De Presser and his three companions are determined to prevent any trucks from passing, and they are unfazed if innocent people suffer: “War is war,” De Presser shrugs. The United States did not care about civilians when it bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “Who provides assistance to his enemy?”
De Presser, gaunt and wearing an inside-out shirt, seems an unlikely leader. But he has credentials. He lived in Yitzhar, a West Bank settlement notorious for violence against neighboring Palestinians, and was arrested dozens of times, including during demonstrations in support of Israel's controversial judicial reform.
A tattoo on his neck is a fist raised against the Blue Star of David, the emblem of the Jewish Defense League, which was founded in New York by extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane and which the FBI has designated as a terrorist organization. The group launched bombings against Palestinian and Arab targets in the 1970s and 1980s, but is now largely inactive.
“He's old school,” explains Benayahu Ben-Shabbat, 23, a friend of De Presser, before they set off on their journey. Ben-Shabbat is responsible for special projects for Im Tirtzu, a right-wing Zionist organization.
Special projects like the one in their shop early Wednesday morning.
De Presser and Ben-Shabbat have been protesting the aid for several weeks. Camping is a new idea.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), at least ostensibly, have turned the Kerem Shalom crossing into a closed military zone since late January. But there are no checkpoints at night, making it easier to bring in busloads of protesters. However, Ben-Shabbat wants to take winding roads through farmland, to stay on the right side of a court order that bars him from entering some parts of the area.
When the group finally reached the crossing, a bus full of campers was already waiting for them.
A lone police car parks inside the open gates, its blue and red lights flashing. But the teens inside are unfazed, and get off the bus and through the open gates, screaming in excitement.
Inside, they shake hands with the soldiers and begin setting up their tents.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is visiting Israel this month, called on Israel to ensure that aid passes to Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing. But there is no apparent effort here to stop the teens.
One of them asks a soldier if he can drive his car to the crossing. The soldier says he's fine but he's not sure if the police will stop him. “I don't think they will,” he says. “Good luck. Turn on your lights.”
A voice over a loudspeaker orders protesters to grab sleeping bags and tents. “Welcome to whoever came,” she says. “Heroes – really, heroes.”
At 3 a.m., Tahil Al-Attar, 17, serves soup. She says: “The army is with us, and the police are with us.” “They don’t want us to be here, but they understand. They let us. We talk to them, we have fun with them, and we give them everything they need.”
Some pose with the soldiers to take a photo. “I am Yisrael Shai!” They scream. Long live the people of Israel.
An explosion inside Gaza reaches the camp. Cheers and shouts rise. Rafah, the border city against which Israel said it was launching a new attack, is less than five miles away.
De Presser updates in his WhatsApp group.
“The gate is open! You can drive straight to the crossing (just move the car further afterward).” Trucks will be banned. “victory!”
The teens, and a few people in their 20s, came from all over Israel. They say humanitarian aid to Gaza helps Hamas, and they will stop it even if it means starving innocent people.
Ben-Shabbat says that sugar and flour can be used to make bombs. “When you mix flour with potassium nitrate, you get an explosive material for a warhead,” he says. “Every pound of sugar and flour that enters Gaza from Israel, we will take it back with a missile that will kill our children.”
The tactic also relates to starvation. “When a soldier is hungry, he does not fight well.”
And children? “No one can say that children are bad,” he says. But “children of the past were killed, raped and kidnapped” on October 7.
Others say help is not necessary.
“We heard that they were giving them things they didn't really need,” Al-Attar says. “Like strawberries. I don’t think people there are crying over strawberries.”
In Gaza, families eat animal feed to survive. 93% of the population of more than 2 million faces “crisis levels of hunger,” a UN-backed consortium said in late December.
Unhappy and hungry Palestinians in Gaza must leave, explains Hadas Kramer, a 17-year-old with curly blond hair from the Orthodox settlement of Otniel near Hebron. It says that Israel is paying them the price of exit. In fact, the vast majority of Gazans have no means of escape.
At dawn new busloads of protesters, children and ultra-Orthodox teenagers arrive from northern Israel. They tie their tefillin and pray. Some dancing. A group plays guitar and sings songs about the army. They use border crossing bathrooms. No one asks them to leave.
Every explosion in Gaza sparks cheers.
“Dead, dead, dead Arabs,” one camper shouted amidst a hail of gunfire. Then I noticed a reporter. Hamas corrects itself.
In the morning, aid trucks stretch along the Israeli border with Egypt. Amid sudden panic at the possibility of allowing deliveries through a gate usually used as an exit, the demonstrators changed their tents.
Israeli soldiers look on. “Dude, don't you feel like putting a bullet in there?” “A demonstrator asks, looking towards Egypt.
The soldier replies: “I don't want them to shoot you.” “You are more important.”
But the new location of some tents seems more disturbing to the Israeli army. At 10 am, a group of senior officers arrives. Among them is Brig. General Yossi Bashar, former Chief of General Staff, now a reservist.
“We will leave here when a video appears of General Yossi Bashar saying that not a single truck will pass through this gate today,” De Presser says. The demonstrators were assured that no goods would be allowed to enter as long as they moved away from the border fence.
They do it. Trucks are idle.
The Israeli military referred questions about why protesters were allowed to remain at the crossing to the Office for the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, the Defense Ministry agency that oversees Palestinian civilian affairs and crossing points. The Office for the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories did not respond to requests for comment. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said it could not provide data on the number of trucks that broke down at the crossing. The office has no presence at the border point.
By early Wednesday afternoon, many of the teens had left for school and family. However, approximately a dozen children remain, along with a small number of adults, who have managed to retain any aid to enter Gaza.
A group of children who had moved barbed wire and tree trunks to form a barricade in front of their tents began to turn back.
Children blaring electronic music. Gaza is shaken by machine gun fire.
De Presser said the protesters had earlier “bowed down” and gone home. But he vows to stay.
De Presser says that after closing the entrance to the crossing for four days, the police tried on Saturday to move what remained of the camp. He sends a new appeal to the demonstrators on WhatsApp.
“All the people of Israel must come and support!”
Judith Sodilowski in Jerusalem contributed.
