Thousands of protestors flooded the streets of Italy on Monday as a nationwide strike in solidarity with Palestine brought much of the country’s infrastructure to a grinding halt.
Demonstrations centered around Italy’s main ports in Genoa and Livorno, also limiting access to public transportation and closing some schools, according to Euronews and The Guardian.
Strike organizers expected some 100,000 protestors in the capital, though officials have noted some 20,000 at the Termini central train station in Rome. The strike has yielded 12 arrests and some 60 officers injured, according to Italy’s ANSA news.
“Israel is currently attempting a ‘final solution’ in Gaza, carrying out a decades-long genocide,” the USB—a grassroots union known for its organizing efforts—said in a Sept. 16 statement. “In solidarity with the Palestinian people and the mission of the Global Sumud Flotilla, and against the war economy, the USB has called for a full-day general strike on September 22nd: a necessary and urgent response to the escalating massacre of women, men, and children in Palestine.”
The union also called for a severance of “all commercial and non-commercial relations with Israel,” citing this action as “necessary and urgent as a concrete form of solidarity with the horrors being perpetrated in the Palestinian territories.”
Protests in several Italian cities led to clashes with police, with armed demonstrators in Milan attempting to force entry into the central train station with batons, throwing smoke bombs, bottles, and stones at officers who retaliated with pepper spray. In Bologna, police deployed water cannons to disperse protesters who had blocked a highway.
“There are demonstrations in 60 Italian cities, and nothing will leave from here, from the station, from the airports, from the ports, we don’t want any more weapons, our demands are clear,” said Maya Issa, a member of the Palestinian student movement in Rome. “We want sanctions against Israel. A total embargo, not just on weapons. We want a break with Israel on an economic, academic, political, and sporting level. Israel must be isolated because it is not only a danger to the Palestinians, but a danger to the whole world.”
“To give a signal to the Palestinian people, but also to force our government to stop stuttering and actually do what it takes to bring home the result,” said Walter Montagnoli, National Secretary of CUB Union. “If we don’t block what Israel is doing, if we don’t block trade, the distribution of weapons, and everything else with Israel, we will not ever achieve anything.”
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni responded to the strikes, calling the scene “outrageous,” and highlighting the hypocrisy of “self-proclaimed ‘pacifists’ who wreak havoc on the train station and provoke clashes with Law Enforcement.”
“Violence and destruction that have nothing to do with solidarity and that will not change a single thing in the lives of people in Gaza, but will have concrete consequences for Italian citizens, who will end up suffering and paying for the damages caused by these thugs,” Meloni said on X.
The strike comes simultaneously with France’s official recognition of Palestine, joining the U.K., Canada, Australia, and others in their recognition of the state. French President Emmanuel Macron told the United Nations on Monday that “the time [had] come” to recognize Palestine as a state.
“We must do everything within our power to preserve the very possibility of a two-state solution, Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security,” Macron said.
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