Mediterranean dockworkers stage coordinated strike in solidarity with Gaza

Dockworkers across the Mediterranean have halted activity in more than 20 ports in protest at the Israeli regime’s genocidal atrocities in the Gaza Strip and militarization of port infrastructure to serve Tel Aviv’s aggression.

Union organizers said on Friday, when the strikes went underway, that the protest action reflected both long-standing solidarity with Palestine and demands for dignified working conditions.

Ahead of the strike, ships known to regularly transport military cargo to the occupied territories reportedly altered their itineraries.

Demonstrations took place in ports across Greece, Turkey, and the Basque Country.

In Turkey, the Liman-İş Sendikası union rallied hundreds of members “against genocide and in solidarity with Palestine.”

In Greece, dockworkers emphasized a contradiction between substantial European investment in rearmament and austerity measures that had cut public services, arguing that these policies had compromised safety conditions.

“We won’t accept work without rights,” said Damianos Voudigaris of the Greek union ENEDEP. “Development should mean going home alive. Ports are places of work, not war. They are places of sweat, not blood.”

Italy recorded some of the largest actions, with strikes across more than a dozen ports involving dockworkers, port employees, students, and members of the public.

The Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) reported assemblies displaying Palestinian flags and called on Europe’s labor movement to adopt an internationalist orientation in response to EU and right-wing government policies, including those of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Dockworkers in Trieste warned against privatization, while participants in Bari and Ravenna said port infrastructure was being used, “sometimes covertly,” to transport military and dual-use materials to the Israeli regime. In Genoa, members of the collective CALP led one of the largest demonstrations, stating, “We promised to block everything – and we blocked everything. We promised a general strike – and we had a general strike. We promised an international strike – and here we are.”

Strikers emphasized that the action was only the beginning. “Today it’s the ports, tomorrow it will be the entire logistics sector, and then it will be all workers,” organizers said.

‘Dockworkers Don’t Work for War’

The World Federation of Trade Unions endorsed the mobilization and adopted the official banner, “Dockworkers Don’t Work for War.”

The strike coincided with announcements from the Global Sumud Flotilla, which revealed plans for a new civilian aid mission to Gaza departing on March 29. The mission will begin in Barcelona, travel through multiple Mediterranean ports, and include parallel land convoys toward the Rafah border crossing, Gaza’s only land terminal that bypasses the occupied territories.

The flotilla will carry humanitarian aid along with medical workers, engineers, and war crimes investigation teams in an effort to break the regime’s blockade on the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.

This is the flotilla’s second attempt to reach Gaza after its first such bid was faced with unbridled Israeli aggression and blockage.

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