Members of the UK, Turkish and USA based aid and humanitarian support group, Viva Palestina, sent a convoy of over 500 people from 20 nations, (led by British Member of Parliament George Galloway) clashed with the local Egyptian police at an Egyptian port have wounded over 50 people.

The 'Viva Palestina' convoy, which left the UK on December 5th, is trying to take aid supplies to the Gaza area of Palestine. Scuffles broke out at al-Arish port when 59 of the 198 trucks were told they could not enter via Egypt's Rafah border crossing, but would have to go through Israel instead.  The entire convoy of humanitarian aid supporters insisted on crossing the border and providing the urgently needed aid directly to the people of Gaza.  Israel and Egypt have been blocking all forms of desparately needed ait to palestine for years, actually keeping the aid for themselves.

Photo: British Member of Parliament, George Galloway

Reports are that dozens of humanitarian aid supporters were injured during clashes with Egyptian police at the port. Additionally at least a dozen police were injured, who had pounded the humanitarian aid supporters with high-pressure water cannons.

One of the convoy's members, Alexandra Lort-Phillips, said that she blamed the violence on "heavy-handed" policing, ordered by the Egyptian government. "We started getting pelted with stones by people in plain clothes," she said, "then the police started moving in, using tear gas and batons. People were quite severely beaten."

Viva Palestina's website described the events as a "riot", and said in a statement that the Egyptians' "stubbornness and hostility" towards the activists had created a "crisis point".

Mr Galloway is the sole MP(Member of Parliament) for the Respect party, and has been a vocal supporter for the Palestinians. He told Sky News this morning: "It is completely unconscionable that 25 per cent of our convoy should go to Israel and never arrive in Gaza. Because nothing that ever goes to Israel, ever arrives in Gaza." Mr. Galloway referred to the problem that Israel was intercepting and keeping the aid for use in Israel which was intended to help the Palestinian people.

Last month, he criticised the Palestinians' neighbors for failing to do enough to help the Gazans, saying that it was "a shame" the convoy was having to come from Europe, rather than Arab governments. During a similar convoy expedition in March he accused the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak of being responsible for "the murder of every Palestinian who has died these last two years".

The convoy has already faced numerous delays in its lengthy journey. It was meant to arrive on December 27th to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the most recent war between Israel and Gaza. Instead, Egyptian authorities banned the group from entering the country via ferry from Jordan, and forced them to go north to the port of Lattakia, in Syria.

Israel's tight blockade of Gaza has been in place for over two years now, and prevents all but the most essential humanitarian imports from reaching the Palestinians. It was imposed following the 2006 election victory of Hamas. Although Egypt also has a border crossing with Gaza that stretches for nine miles, it keeps it tightly regulated.

Egyptian workers last month began installing a vast underground steel barrier in effort to halt the life-saving underground trade tunnels at the Palestine-Egyptian border.