Millions across Europe gather for Gaza and the Flotilla. Brussels, tensions in front of Parliament

Brussels – Millions of citizens across Europe are demonstrating today (3 October) against Israel’s boarding of the Global Sumud Flotilla and to demand that their governments act decisively to end the massacre of the Palestinian people in Gaza. The general strike called in Italy was also joined by Madrid, Barcelona, and Lisbon. Streets were also packed in Berlin, Paris, Warsaw, and Athens. In Brussels, there were tense moments between the marchers and the police in front of the European Parliament. 

Italian cities are leading the protest: 100 thousand demonstrators in Rome, 70 thousand in Milan and Turin, 50 thousand in Naples, Florence, and Bologna. And then, 30 thousand in Palermo and Genoa. Thousands of people also took to the streets in Venice, Bari, Cagliari. More than a million in all the urban centres of the Boot, from north to south. Ports, motorways, and railway stations were targeted. In Turin, this morning, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was a guest at Italian Tech Week: the Officine Grandi Riparazioni, the site of the event, was reached by several marches, violently repelled by the police.

Police cordon and protesters in front of the European Parliament in Brussels [Photo: Simone De La Feld – Eunews]

In Brussels, the seat of the EU’s largest institutions, yesterday, some 5,000 people marched from the Belgian Foreign Ministry to the forecourt in front of the European Parliament. After a few hours of presence, in the evening, the police dispersed the protesters with tear gas and water cannons. Several people were arrested, and others were injured by federal officers’ batons. In French cities, the Ministry of the Interior reported almost 200,000 protesters, while trade unions claimed that more than half a million people took to the streets between yesterday and today. 

Meanwhile, at around 2 pm, the four Italian MPs and MEPs who had boarded the Flotilla landed at Fiumicino airport on a scheduled flight from Tel Aviv: Senator Marco Croatti (M5S), MP Arturo Scotto (PD), MEP Annalisa Corrado (PD), and MEP Benedetta Scuderi (Avs). “It is good news, but our heart and our anger remain in Gaza, with the children who were waiting for the arrival of those boats as a glimmer of hope,” said Angelo Bonelli, spokesman for Europa Verde, who went to the Roman airport to welcome the MEPs. Croatti, on the other hand, said he was “tremendously concerned for all the Italians left in the Israeli detention centre.” 

The other Italians, 44, should be expelled from Israel between Monday and Tuesday next week. “I think they should be kept here for a few months in an Israeli prison, so that they get used to the smell of the terrorist wing,” attacked Israel’s ultra-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir, arguing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be making a mistake to immediately expel the activists arrested by the Israeli navy in international waters.

The march of protesters on the beltway in Milan, 3/10/2025 (Photo by Stefano RELLANDINI / AFP)

“An act of piracy,” Green MEP Leoluca Orlando called it today, while fellow M5S Valentina Palmisano pointed the finger at the European Commission, which “is doing nothing to protect the European citizens who are being detained in these hours.” Next week, at the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the M5S delegation called for an urgent debate with the executive on the incident.

Meanwhile, new civilian boats are moving towards Gaza. Forty-five have set sail from Turkey, just after the Global Sumud Flotilla was boarded, while eight boats of the “Thousand Madleens to Gaza” mission left Catania on 25 September, joined on 30 September by three more boats of the Freedom Flotilla.