Pro-Palestinian demonstrations, some of which escalated into serious riots, took place in several Italian cities this week.
According to organizers, approximately 50,000 people demonstrated in Milan, where “masked demonstrators threw bottles and stones at police officers, smashed the windows of the Milan train station, and set off smoke bombs.”
The violence resulted in 60 police officers being injured, with 23 requiring hospitalization. Police temporarily closed the station before restoring order after about two hours.
Conservative Italian newspapers, such as Il Giornale, have come out harshly against the protests.
“They called it a ‘strike in solidarity with Palestine,’ but it was a day of premeditated guerrilla warfare. From Milan to Rome, from Bologna to Naples, thousands of common criminals, organized by the far left and painted as pacifists, devastated streets, attacked police officers, blocked trains, highways, and ring roads. If these are the spokespeople in Europe for a ‘free Palestine,’ best wishes and good luck to the Palestinians,” read an editorial from the paper.
However, the protests had massive backing from trade unionists, the political left, and a number of far-left groups.
The far-left trade union federation USB organized the demonstrations in 81 Italian cities, calling it a “general strike” with the slogan “Let’s block everything.”
The USB stated, “The strike is taking place in response to the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army’s blockade of humanitarian aid, and the threats against the international ‘Global Sumud Flotilla’ mission.” Organizers also criticized “the inaction of the Italian government and the European Union, which refuse to impose sanctions against the State of Israel and continue to maintain economic and institutional relations despite the gravity of the situation.”
The protests caused significant disruption, with train and road traffic halted, and schools and universities closed. In Florence and Genoa, demonstrators blocked major transportation hubs. In Milan, rioters burned or symbolically smeared US flags with red paint.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni reacted with outrage to the protests. So far, her government has refused to recognize Palestine, along with a number of European holdouts, such as Hungary and Germany.
She wrote on X that “self-proclaimed ‘Antifa’ and self-proclaimed ‘pacifists’ are vandalizing the train station and causing clashes with the police. Violence and destruction have nothing to do with solidarity and will not change the lives of the people in Gaza in the slightest, but will have concrete consequences for the Italian citizens, who will ultimately suffer and pay for the damage caused by these thugs.”
The Italian prime minister emphasized her hope for “clear words of condemnation from the strike organizers and all political forces.”
Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi described the events on X as “unacceptable scenes that had no connection whatsoever with the issues of peace and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
He stated that rioters exploited the issue to attack law enforcement and expressed gratitude to the security forces “for their once again great professionalism and composure.”
Today, several Western nations, including Great Britain, France, and Canada are expected to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state for the first time at the UN General Assembly.