ROME – Italy was hit on Monday by a nationwide general strike called by grassroots unions against what organisers described as “the genocide in Palestine” and Italy’s arms supplies to Israel. The mobilisation, which extended across both public and private sectors, also targeted rising military spending, war-related economic policies and poor labour conditions.
Transport was among the hardest hit: local buses, metro services and railways faced severe disruption, while major ports and railway lines were blocked. Demonstrations took place in at least 65 cities, drawing students, teachers, health workers and port employees. In Milan, protests around the Central Station escalated into clashes with police, who responded with tear gas. In Bologna, demonstrators blocked the motorway for hours, while in Rome a march reached the city’s ring road.
Union leaders claimed up to half a million people joined the strike, halting 90% of public transport and half of rail services. “If the flotilla is blocked, we are ready to shut everything down again,” said Francesco Staccioli of the USB union.
Senate President Ignazio La Russa, a senior figure in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, lashed out at the protests, describing them as “urban guerrilla warfare.” He said police, citizens and workers had been “taken hostage for hours by the occupation of highways and train stations” and by the “unacceptable violence of hundreds of criminals who call themselves pacifists.”
The protests coincided with renewed debate over Palestinian statehood. While France is moving towards recognition, Italy has ruled it out for now. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani argued last week that Italy “cannot recognise a state that does not recognise Israel, or that is not itself recognised by Israel.”