Around 30 000 citizens from 54 countries have been trying to get to the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza this June. Several came from Wales. Jim Scott from Pembrokeshire explained his reason for going. “When governments fail to uphold international law, ordinary people have to step in.”

This Global March for Gaza didn’t make the BBC news. I followed it on Facebook and saw a few clips on Al Jazeera. Some of the marchers walked from Tunisia. Other walkers had organised buses for much of the route but were stopped in their tracks in Egypt. So, not only did they not get to Gaza, they also didn’t make mainstream news. Demonstrations against the way Israel and its defence force, the IDF, are treating the Palestinians, not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank, are widespread. And yet the suffering goes on.

Wales is well known for its endeavours to bring peace. We read in the Cambrian News a few weeks ago about the Welsh Women’s Peace Petition collected in 1923-24 and delivered to the women of the United States.

Here’s another one, the women of Greenham Common. And it started with walking. In 1981 a few women walked from Wales, gathering more as they headed for the American airbase at Greenham Common outside Newbury. There were 96 nuclear cruise missiles stationed there. The women camped outside the base for years. Their numbers grew. At first they were vilified in the media. It was argued that mothers shouldn’t leave their children behind to sit in a dirty camp by the main road. Of course over the millennia men have left their families to go off to war where many of them have experienced far greater hardships than the Greenham women.

Over time, these women gained respect. Like the marchers in Egypt this year, they were frequently arrested and harassed. I only delivered goods but friends of mine were unlawfully detained and received compensation some years later. In the end, the women won. The US closed its airbase and took the missiles away.

I’ve been back to Greenham Common which is now a nature reserve full of walkers and cyclists. Certain parts remain closed to the public. On the corner is a peace park and archaeologists have carried out digs and written up their findings. How time changes attitudes. Perhaps in a few years’ time, the Global March to Gaza will be similarly reported on.

The eyes of the world are currently on Iran and its nuclear facilities. We don’t know whether they’ve been destroyed. Still the daily death toll in Gaza mounts. Israel is worried about being obliterated by Iran and yet, hypocritically, seems hell-bent on obliterating the Palestinian people of Gaza and the West Bank. And talking about hypocrisy, who decides which country is allowed to have nuclear weapons? President Trump, nuclear weapon possessor extraordinaire, clearly thinks he’s in charge of all of us. The United Nations when it was set up gave more power to nuclear nations. That was a massive mistake. And now, even the UN appears completely sidelined by The Donald.

In the 1980s and 90s we felt hopeful that the number of nuclear warheads would diminish over time, and eventually reach zero, after the signing of the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty by the US and the USSR. “Conscious that nuclear weapons would have devastating consequences for all mankind,” are words in the Treaty, the same words used by the Greenham women in defence of their actions. Perhaps Welsh women need to start walking again and demand that no country be allowed to have nuclear weapons.