After the detention of activists who followed aboard the Global Sumud flotilla, several demonstrations came from Europe. Posters, party glass, vandalized monsters and the blockade of a university with tires marked these protests
Pro-Palestinian protesters vandalized shops and restaurants on Thursday after the intersection of the Global Sumud flotilha with Israel. About 40 ships trying to break with the Israelite block were intercepted and more than 400 detained activists. This is the case of Greta Thunberg, but also the Portuguese Mortágua, Sofia Aparício, Miguel Duarte and Diogo Chaves. Soon after, the protests began.
In Barcelona, several shops and restaurants have been broken or painted with anti-Israel slogans, including Starbucks cafes, Burger King hamburge franchise and Carrefour supermarket chain, accused of complicity in Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip.
“These protests are the only thing we can do,” said Akram Azahomaras, who was among the protesters, to the agency, noting that the vandalism of stores was counterproductive: “Doing that, I don’t think right, we need to do it peacefully, with our words, not with actions.”
In Italy, students occupied universities, including Statale de Milan and La Sapienza de Rome, and blocked access to the University of Bologna with car tires. In Turin, hundreds of people blocked traffic in the city. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other professionals should participate in a flash mob in Rome, where they would light up flashlights and mobile phones and read the names of the 1,677 health professionals killed in Gaza, the organizers said. The Italian unions have called a general strike in support of the Humanitarian aid fleet to Gaza, with more than 100 gears or planned rallies across the country.
The Minister of Defense of Italy, Guido Crosetto, criticized the disturbance caused by some of the protesters. “Someone really believes that blocking a station, an airport, a highway or destroying a store in Italy will bring relief to the Palestinian people?” He wrote on social network X.
Throughout Europe, thousands of protesters took to the streets in Dublin, Paris, Berlin and Geneva to condemn the interception of the fleet for Israel. Rallies also occurred in Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Karachi.
In Istanbul, a crowd gathered in front of Israel’s embassy to hold back lanes like “Israel is massacting humanity, not Gaza” and “don’t be silent, don’t stand still, get up.”
In Lisbon and Porto, thousands of protesters with Palestinian scarves and posters required the end of the war and the liberation of the four Portuguese who followed in the flotilla were gathered. No mude painted words like “Free Gaza” and “Free Palestine” and even dyed the building with red paint.
The war in Gaza has killed more than 66,000 people, according to Palestinian authorities. Israel began his offensive after Hamas’s attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli data.
