Massive crowd in Genoa to celebrate departure of flotilla as city collects 300 tons of food for Gaza in five days.
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday night joined a torchlit procession in the north-western Italian city of Genoa to celebrate a flotilla which will attempt to take food by sea to Gaza.
Genoa’s centre-left mayor Silvia Salis participated in the event which was organised to celebrate the voyage of the Global Sumud Flotilla which is attempting to bring aid by sea to starving civilians in the war-torn Gaza Strip.
The huge crowd – estimated by some Italian news outlets as numbering 40,000 people – marched to the port to symbolically load the food and aid supplies onto boats heading for Catania in Sicily on Sunday.
Global Sumud Flotilla
Dozens of other boats laden with food and humanitarian aid for Gaza are also set to depart from Barcelona in Spain on Sunday.
Once in Catania, the boats will join a flotilla of more than 40 vessels, including from Tunis, in a humanitarian mission scheduled to depart for Gaza on Thursday.
“When the world stays silent, we set sail”, says the Global Sumud Flotilla, whose stated aim is “to break the illegal siege on Gaza by sea, open a humanitarian corridor, and end the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.”
Israel imposed a naval blockade on Gaza after Hamas took control of the coastal enclave in 2007, saying its aim is to stop weapons from reaching the militant group.
“Civilian vessels carrying humanitarian aid or engaging in peaceful protest in international waters are protected under maritime law”, the Global Sumud Flotilla says, adding that its “decentralised model—with hundreds of small boats—builds resilience, distributes responsibility, and amplifies grassroots leadership.”
Genoa digs deep
In recent days, a major food drive was organised in Genoa, with 300 tons of food supplies donated in just five days.
The appeal was launched by the humanitarian organisation Music for Peace together with CALP, a collective of Genoa dockworkers, with the end result far exceeding the organisers’ initial target of 40 tons.
“I wanted to be here wearing the tricolour sash because I truly want to represent all of Genoa and its extraordinary solidarity and humanity”, the city’s mayor Silvia Salis said during the torchlit procession, which was led by a large “Free Palestine” banner.
Sono orgogliosa di essere la sindaca di Genova, stasera ancora di più. Ho partecipato alla fiaccolata da Music for Peace al Porto Antico, dove partirà la #GlobalSumudFlotilla verso la Striscia di Gaza. Grazie a chi lo sta rendendo possibile. Tutta la città è al vostro fianco. pic.twitter.com/0VmzYl50pn
— Silvia Salis (@silvia_salis) August 30, 2025
Salis said the response to “the food drive for Palestine and the stream of citizens marching tonight is truly moving”, adding: “The entire city is behind the mission”.
Venice Film Festival
Separately, several thousand people joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Venice on Saturday evening, to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis during the city’s star-studded film festival.
Organisers, the Venice4Palestine (V4P) collective, stated: “The Venice Film Festival must not remain an event isolated from reality, but rather become a space to denounce the genocide being carried out by Israel, the complicity of Western governments, and to offer concrete support to the Palestinian people”.
Last week hundreds of film industry professionals signed an open letter from V4P urging the festival’s organisers to take a “clear and unambiguous stand [in] condemning the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing across Palestine carried out by the Israeli government and army.”
Photo Genova24
