On October 3, 2025, more than two million workers and young people took to the streets of Italy in a historic general strike for Palestine — the largest protest of its kind in the country’s history. Under the slogan “Blocchiamo Tutto” (“Let’s Block Everything”), demonstrations swept across more than eighty cities. Ports in Livorno, Naples, Salerno, and Genoa were shut down; railways and highways were disrupted; schools, universities, and workplaces were closed as students, teachers, and workers walked out. In Rome, a one-million-strong demonstration followed the nationwide strike.

The twenty-four-hour strike was called by Italy’s largest trade union, the Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (CGIL), alongside the grassroots Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), in response to the illegal interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla by Israeli forces. CGIL declared the strike “in defence of the flotilla” and “to stop the genocide,” as protests erupted across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

This was the culmination of a broader movement that had already shaken Italy three weeks prior. On September 22, grassroots unions, including USB, Confederazione Unitaria di Base (CUB), Sindacato Generale di Base (SGB), Associazione Difesa Lavoratrici e Lavoratori (ADL), and the Italian Syndicalist Union (USI), mobilized one million people in a coordinated general strike.