Egyptian fruit vendor tosses oranges to feed starving Gazans

Once he saw the humanitarian trucks moving in front of his eyes to the Palestinians in Gaza, Rabie, a fruit seller in the Hawamdya district in Egypt’s Giza, felt the urge to help the starving Gazans and threw the oranges he was selling in the streets onto the trucks.

Video footage went viral showing Rabie, who is 53 years old and has six children, in a rush to throw his oranges he sells on the back of the trucks heading to the Rafah border crossing.

عم ربيع اللي رمي البرتقال بتاعة علي عربيات المساعدات بتاعة غزة 💚
رجل اعمال أتبرع له بحجة 🕋 ورجل أعمال تاني هيفتح له محل 💚
الله ييسرلك امورك و يفتحها عليك يا عم ربيع ❤️
انت فوق راسنا كلنا 🥹❤️ pic.twitter.com/Yb3lQRR0ZO

— ديدو ‏ (@Dorktya) February 16, 2024

“My heart is with [the Palestinians in Gaza]. I wish them to live in safety and security. As we sleep well, we wish them to sleep well. As we live happily, we wish them to live happily,” said Rabie in an interview with Al Jazeera Mubashir.

He added that he did so spontaneously and without thinking, especially when a scene of Palestinians forced to eat rotten sweet potatoes due to the lack of food was still etched in his mind.

Rabie, who is originally from Beni Suef in Upper Egypt, said that he was giving the drivers more oranges so that they would not eat from the ones he had thrown on the trucks.

In another interview with Cairo 24, Rabie spoke about how he is so worried about the starving people in Gaza, recalling another video he saw of an eight-member family sharing their meal of only one small plate of tomatoes.

He added that he is not the only Egyptian who is ready to do more for the Palestinians, saying he is ready to go there to sacrifice himself in support of the Palestinian cause.

As a reward, an Egyptian businessman announced that he will bear the cost for Rabie to perform the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, while another businessman pledged to buy Rabie a shop to sell his fruits, said MBC Masr anchorman Emad Adib on Friday.

Israel has been committing a systematic genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023. It cut off water, electricity, food, and fuel from the enclave and has excessively bombed it, killing at least 28,775 Palestinians and injuring 68,552 others, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health on Saturday.

Additionally, humanitarian aid trucks rarely enter the besieged enclave, especially to the north, through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt after being checked by Israeli soldiers at the Karam Abu Salem border crossing between Egypt and Israel.

“Gaza is facing ‘catastrophic levels of food insecurity,’ with the risk of famine ‘increasing each day,’” the World Health Organization announced on December 21, 2023.