RAFAH, Egypt (The Thursday Times) — Lewis Hamilton has visited Egypt’s side of the Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip and the warehouses where aid for the territory is prepared, in one of the most public gestures yet by a leading sportsman on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The seven-time Formula One world champion toured the crossing on Tuesday with Khaled Megawer, the governor of North Sinai, before visiting logistics centres run by the Egyptian Red Crescent in El Arish, where relief supplies are sorted and coordinated before they enter Gaza.
At the crossing, Hamilton greeted aid workers with “Assalamu alaikum”, shook hands with staff and officials, and asked how often they were able to take supplies through. Megawer said the visit was meant to show the British driver Egypt’s efforts to send aid into the Strip, and his office shared clips of the tour on its official Facebook page.
Aid still falls short
The visit came as aid reaching Gaza continues to fall well below the minimum of 600 trucks a day agreed under the ceasefire reached last year. An independent commission of UN experts said last month that Israeli forces had expanded their control from 53 per cent of the territory to at least 60 per cent, and that Israeli fire along the advancing front had killed at least 196 Palestinians.
Heavy rain and flooding this week have worsened conditions for displaced families, killing at least five people, including four children, and causing sand embankments to collapse onto a displacement camp south of Deir el-Balah.
A long-standing voice on Gaza
Hamilton, 41, has been one of the most prominent voices in sport on Gaza. In May 2024 he called for an end to Israel’s attacks on the Strip, writing “Enough is enough”. In December 2025 he travelled to Jordan with the British Red Cross to meet teams preparing aid for Gaza and visited children evacuated from the Strip for treatment, describing that trip as life-changing.
“I think we need to make sure we’re pushing to free Congo, free Sudan, free Syria, free Palestine,” he said in October.
The trip to Egypt came two days after the Ferrari driver made his 400th Formula One start at the São Paulo Grand Prix, becoming only the second driver to reach the mark after Fernando Alonso.
