Thousands of workers and students have joined a strike and widespread demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.
Milan and Rome have essentially been shut down, with long delays for national trains and limited public transport in major cities.
Italy’s grassroots unions called for a 24-hour general strike in public and private sectors, including public transportation, trains, schools and ports.
Police have clashed with protesters as tensions rise. Dockworkers have blocked access roads to ports in a bid to stop the transfer of supplies to Israel.
Outside of Bologna, protesters tried to stop traffic on a motorway as part of the demonstration.
A member of the Autonomous Port Workers’ Collective, named as Ricky, said: ‘The Palestinian people continue to give us yet another lesson in dignity and resistance. We learn from them and try to do our part.’
Thousands of people are marching in the streets, waving Palestinian flags alongside Italian ones.
Student Alessandra told local media: ‘This doesn’t mean we’re anti-Jews or antisemitic, and we’re tired of the media and politicians playing on this misunderstanding.
‘It just means we’re against a government that’s committing genocide while the international community looks the other way.’
Police have fought back when some of the protests became unruly, using a water cannon to make people leave.
It comes just a day after the UK, Australia, Canada, and Portugal officially recognised Palestinian Statehood.
Sir Keir Starmer said: ‘To revive the hope of peace for the Palestinians and Israelis, and a two-state solution, the United Kingdom formally recognises the State of Palestine.’
In an early indication of the changes, some Foreign Office web pages, including pages about travel advice for Israel, changed references from ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’ to ‘Palestine’.
No ceasefire has been agreed, and Israel has launched a major ground offensive to seize all of Gaza City, an operation condemned as ‘utterly reckless’ by Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a cross-border attack in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and hundreds taken hostage.
It sparked a bloody war, in which more than 65,000 Palestinians are confirmed to have been killed, as Israeli troops and tanks push deeper into Gaza City.
The death count in Gaza has reached 65,062, with another 165,697 wounded, since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, according to the Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government.
The figures are seen as a reliable estimate by the UN and many independent experts, who also declared a genocide in the enclave last week.
A commission of UN experts found Israel was committing genocide in the Palestinian enclave. Israel denies the allegation.
‘What we are witnessing in Gaza is not only an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, but what the UN Commission of Inquiry has now concluded is a genocide,’ a statement read.
‘States must use every available political, economic, and legal tool at their disposal to intervene. Rhetoric and half measures are not enough. This moment demands decisive action.’
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