On August 31, 2025, the Global Samud Flotilla set sail. This flotilla is the most recent and largest coalition of activists from around the world who have embarked to reach Gaza, breaking the siege and delivering humanitarian aid, by sea. Israeli officials have threatened that consequences for the activists will be worse than previous ventures, including detaining participants in prisons reserved for state-designated terrorists and seizing the ships to be turned into Israeli police assets.

Amidst this escalation, Italian dockworkers in the Port of Genoa are prepared to go on strike to defend the flotilla in an act that would majorly disrupt global shipping. This act shows the decisive role that the working class has to play in the protection of the Flotilla, the defeat of Israel’s genocidal project in Gaza and the expansion of its occupation of the West Bank.

To a crowd of 40,000 people in Genoa who gathered for the departure of the Flotilla, a representative of the autonomous portworkers’ group Music for Peace and Calp (affiliated with the umbrella union Unione Sindacale di Base) spoke powerful words of international solidarity: “If we lose contact with our boats for even 20 minutes, with our comrades, we will block all of Europe.”

The call invited other unions and dockworkers across Europe to join them in their preparations to strike. The port of Genoa, the representative explained, ships 13-14 thousand containers each year to Israel, and is one of Italy’s two largest commercial ports.

The Flotilla includes representatives and activists from 44 different countries, including socialists from the Trotskyist Fraction (FT-CI). Alongside figures like Greta Thunberg and Thiago Avila is our comrade Bruno Gilga from the MRT, Left Voice’s sister organization in Brazil, which is also part of the FT-CI. 

This is not the first time the Genoese dock workers have taken action to protest imperialism and Israel’s brutal occupation. In 2019, these workers refused to load cargo onto vessels carrying weapons for the war in Yemen, and in 2021, before the current iteration of the genocide in Gaza, they declared that they would not load any ships suspected of carrying arms to Israel. Nor are the Genoese dockworkers alone in their readiness to strike for Gaza. Since October 7—and even before—dockworkers and activists in Greece, France, and Morocco have blocked arm shipments to Israel. U.S. dockworkers should take up this international call: from the International Longshoreman’s Association on the East Coast to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union on the West Coast, dockworkers have the power to halt all U.S. shipments to Israel. The freedom of Palestine is the task of the working class: through internationalist collective action, workers can make their political will felt by Israel and the imperialist governments that support its massacre of Palestinians.

In their statement, the Unione Sindacale di Base, a syndicate comprised of smaller grassroots unions, wrote with a deep understanding of the pivotal potential of the organized working class:

Workers can play a decisive role in influencing the outcome of the situation and embody a widespread sentiment in support of this courageous initiative. By blocking ships and aircraft carrying weapons to war zones, they have earned a fundamental role and are well-placed to broaden their perspective on rearmament policies and the consequences they have on our lives.

As many of us have been repeating these days, we cannot stand by and watch. We are sending word to the Israeli minister that his threats will not stop us and that his words are encouraging us to intensify the initiative.

With Palestine in our hearts, full speed ahead!

If they block the Flotilla, we block everything!