On Monday, September 22, 2025, Italy witnessed one of the largest nationwide protests in Europe this year, as tens of thousands of workers, students, and activists poured into the streets of more than 65 cities to denounce Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza and call for solidarity with the Palestinian people. The day was marked by a 24-hour general strike, widespread disruption of public services, and, in some places, violent confrontations with police—an expression of mounting frustration with both the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and what many Italians perceive as their government’s inaction.
The mobilization was spearheaded by grassroots unions, including USB and CUB, who called for a halt across both public and private sectors. The strike affected local buses, metro services, national railways, schools, and major ports. Union leaders claimed up to half a million people joined the action, halting 90% of public transport and half of rail services nationwide, as reported by Euractiv. Demonstrations stretched from Milan and Rome to Palermo, Naples, Turin, Florence, and Sicily, reflecting a groundswell of support for the Palestinian cause throughout the country.
Rome’s central Termini train station became a focal point, with more than 20,000 demonstrators waving Palestinian flags and chanting “free Palestine” in both Italian and English, according to AP and The Guardian. Protesters, including students and workers, carried banners reading “Against Genocide. Let’s block everything.” Federica Casino, a 52-year-old protester, encapsulated the mood: “Italy must come to a standstill today. Italy talks but does nothing.” Seventeen-year-old Michelangelo told AFP he was protesting to support “a population that is being exterminated.”
In Milan, the situation escalated rapidly. Dozens of protesters, many dressed in black and armed with batons, attempted to smash the main entrance of the city’s central train station. They hurled smoke bombs, bottles, and stones at the police, who responded with pepper spray and tear gas. A US flag was set ablaze, and the clashes left at least 10 people arrested and about 60 police officers injured, according to Italy’s ANSA news agency and Reuters. The violence in Milan was widely condemned, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni taking to social media to declare, “Violence and destruction have nothing to do with solidarity and won’t change a thing in the lives of people in Gaza.” She further stated, “(This was) violence and destruction that have nothing to do with solidarity and will not change the lives of people in Gaza by a fraction, but will have concrete consequences for Italian citizens who will end up suffering and paying for the damage caused by these hooligans.”
Bologna, another epicenter of protest, saw over 10,000 marchers, with demonstrators blocking a main motorway for hours. Police used water cannons to disperse crowds, echoing scenes from other cities where the protests sometimes tipped into confrontation. Dock workers staged sit-ins and strikes in the ports of Genoa, Livorno, Trieste, and Venice, slowing or partially blocking the movement of goods. In Genoa and Livorno, concerns were raised that Italian ports were being used as staging posts for the transfer of arms to Israel. Ricky, a protester from Genoa’s Autonomous Dockworkers’ Collective, told Reuters, “The Palestinian people continue to give us yet another lesson in dignity and resistance. We learn from them and try to do our part.”
Union leaders made it clear that their demands went beyond solidarity statements. The USB union called for the Italian government to cut all ties with Israel over its military operations in Gaza. Francesco Staccioli of USB declared, “If the flotilla is blocked, we are ready to shut everything down again.” The protests also targeted rising military spending, war-related economic policies, and poor labor conditions at home. Walter Montagnoli, national secretary of the CUB union, emphasized, “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.”
The timing of the protests was significant, coinciding with discussions at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where France and several other countries were expected to recognize a Palestinian state. Italy, under the conservative government of Prime Minister Meloni, has ruled out such recognition for now. Meloni has previously argued that recognizing Palestine prematurely could be counterproductive, telling La Repubblica in July, “If something that doesn’t exist is recognised on paper, the problem could appear to be solved when it isn’t.” Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani echoed this sentiment, stating that Italy “cannot recognise a state that does not recognise Israel, or that is not itself recognised by Israel.”
Despite the government’s stance, a La Stampa poll cited by AFP revealed that nearly 64% of Italians consider the Gaza situation “very serious,” with 41% in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state. The protests, therefore, reflected not only union activism but also a broader public concern over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and frustration with government policy.
The roots of the current conflict trace back to the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel, which killed around 1,200 people and resulted in 251 hostages being taken. Israel’s military response has since killed more than 65,100 people in Gaza over the past 23 months, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, with around 90% of the population displaced and vast areas of the territory destroyed. U.N. agencies and independent experts consider these casualty figures the most reliable, though the ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The humanitarian crisis has reached catastrophic levels, with widespread famine and infrastructure collapse reported by AP and The Guardian.
Political reactions within Italy were sharply divided. Senate President Ignazio La Russa, a senior figure in Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, described the protests as “urban guerrilla warfare,” accusing demonstrators of taking police, citizens, and workers “hostage for hours by the occupation of highways and train stations” and condemning what he called “the unacceptable violence of hundreds of criminals who call themselves pacifists.” Meanwhile, Transport Minister Matteo Salvini downplayed the impact, dismissing the events as the “political mobilisation of far-left unionists” and praising those who reported to work as usual.
Amid the turbulence, many protesters insisted their cause was humanitarian, not political. A political science student named Alessandra told La Repubblica, “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.”
As the day ended, Italy’s cities returned to a fragile calm, but the underlying tensions—over Gaza, government policy, and the right to protest—remained unresolved. The events of September 22 signaled a country grappling with its conscience and its place in a world where distant wars feel ever closer to home.