A Palestinian man and his Scottish wife will take a van loaded with 1.5 tons of urgently needed medical supplies from Scotland to the Gaza Strip.Khalil Al Niss and Linda Willis will leave from the Scottish Parliament at noon on Thursday, July 10th and are expected to arrive at the Rafah crossing in Egypt on Tuesday, July 15th.

The couple will drive their van which carries stickers reading ”From Scotland to Gaza”, across Europe and the Middle East to Egypt’s border with Gaza, where Israel’s US- and EU- backed siege is causing critical shortages of all medical supplies, needless deaths and immense suffering.

Richard Falk, a noted Jewish-American and the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, has likened Israel’s cruel siege of Gaza to the behavior of the Nazis. Archbishop Desmond Tutu recently visited Gaza and called Israel’s siege an ‘abomination’.

Khalil is originally from Jerusalem, Linda is a Scottish nurse. They are both taking time off work to make the journey.

Around 200 Palestinian patients died in the past 12 months as a result of the siege for lack of medication or for not being allowed to leave the Gaza Strip for medical treatment.