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05-10-2025
ROME: Workers in Italy joined a general strike on Friday, not for better pay or conditions, but in solidarity with the people of Gaza.
Large crowds took to the streets of multiple cities amid a growing wave of protest across Europe at Israel’s bombardment and blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Italy’s Interior Ministry says up to 400,000 protesters came out in total in 29 locations; trade unions claim the number was four times that.
Anger intensified this week when the Israeli military boarded a flotilla of boats full of European politicians and activists and stopped them delivering food and medical aid to Gaza, where UN-backed experts have confirmed famine in Gaza City and its surrounding areas.
Israel dismissed the flotilla as a publicity stunt. There were more than 40 Italians on board.
Italy’s hard-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni criticized the general strike, arguing that it would not advance the Palestinian cause and only hinder Italian people trying to go about their lives. She suggested the unionists just wanted a long weekend.
Her deputy, Matteo Salvini, called the strike illegal, announced without sufficient notice, and threatened sanctions.
Large numbers turned out regardless, behind banners with slogans like “Stop the Massacre” and “Hands off the Flotilla!”
From calm to clashes
In several cities, including Milan and Bologna, there were clashes, with protesters throwing stones at police then being sprayed with tear gas.
In Pisa, a group with brightly colored flares stormed the airport runway, halting flights for a time, while in Naples dockworkers blockaded the port. In Turin, protesters pulled metal barriers onto railways.
There were protests in other European cities, too, from The Hague to Madrid.
Here in Rome the main march was large, but peaceful.
“Governments, especially the Italians, are not taking action against what is happening in Gaza,” said university teacher Francesca, explaining why she’d joined the walkout.
Students at Sapienza University where she works are staging sit-ins at several faculties.
“We’re here to say that it is time to intervene and solve things,” Francesca said.
Outside Termini railway station a small tent camp has sprung up with a sign declaring its address as “Piazza Gaza”. Nearby, a giant minimalist statue of Pope John Paul II has been dressed in a Palestinian scarf.
After marching calmly past that and through the centre of the capital, a section of the crowd briefly occupied part of the motorway around Rome. Waving giant Palestinian flags and holding flares they shouted “we’re blocking everything”, then marched through a long tunnel which amplified their chants as police stood back and watched.
Meloni under pressure
“This is the best face of our country. Italy is better than the people who are now in government,” opposition leader Elly Schlein told media, at the start of the Rome march.
The Democratic Party leader argued that Italy’s prime minister had failed to call out “the crimes of the Israeli government” in Gaza, as she sees it, and described it as a “shame” that Italy had not joined the growing number of countries now recognizing Palestinian statehood.
Israel has called that move by many a “mark of shame” itself. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
