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Alice Walker, author of "The Color Purple" and Pulitzer Prize winner, will travel to the Gaza Strip along with other activists to highlight the damage caused by the Israeli invasion in the territory.

"I think what is happening in the Middle East is very important because the situation is so volatile," said Walker in a telephone interview from the border crossing at Rafah, while the group was waiting to enter Gaza. "I love people and love children and I think the Palestinian child is as valuable as the child of Afro-American and Jewish children."


Walker is part of a group of about 60 women coming to Gaza to distribute aid and meet with NGOs and residents of the coastal strip. His trip, organized by the American group Code Pink (Code Pink), is designed to force Israel and Egypt to open its borders with Gaza, said Medea Benjamin, a founder of the group.

The trip coincides with the stagnation of efforts to achieve a truce between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas. The Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip to prevent rocket and mortar attacks against the Jewish state's south, was completed on January 18 with separate statements of truce from Israel and Hamas.


Group members remain in Gaza until March 11, said Benjamin. During his trip to Gaza delivered baskets full of personal feminine products such as shampoo.

Walker, on his first visit to Gaza, said it is important for Americans, who give so much military aid to Israel, to understand how their money is used.