In Livorno, a port city off the coast of Tuscany, a coalition of labor unions, local organizations, and everyday people have blocked container ships from moving cargo.
Participants organized by a network of local antifascists collectives, grassroots trade-unions, dockers, and students, rally at the Piazza Attias in Livorno, Italy, on September 30., Photo: Giacomo Sini / The Progressive Magazine
"We are writing history together!”
The phrase echoes through the air in Piazza Attias, a square in the heart of Livorno, Italy, a port city on the edge of Tuscany, as a packed assembly takes place. It’s September 30, and there are 500 people in attendance, some standing on benches to get a better view. People on scooters slow down as they pass by, some greeting the crowd by honking their car horns or raising their fists. When the announcement is made that an Israeli-flagged container ship has turned back from the Porto di Livorno, where it was scheduled to carry out loading and unloading operations, the whole square erupts in applause.
Within a span of of just ten days last month, union workers and everyday people in Livorno secured two major victories against the Italian government’s enabling of genocide in Gaza by blocking two ships believed to be involved in the supply chain of transport of weapons or other equipment to Israel. Their success was the result of a solidarity movement led by unions, activist groups, and tens of thousands of protesters across the city.
In September, the Palestine solidarity movement in Italy gained significant momentum as a result of the Global Sumud Flotilla, whose civilian aid vessels were repeatedly attacked by Israeli drones while sailing through the Mediterranean Sea toward Gaza. The flotilla brought the Italian public together in an enormous show of solidarity, and on September 22—one day before several of its vessels were damaged by drone attacks off the coast of Greece—Italian workers declared a general strike.
Demonstrators block the Variante Aurelia SS 1, a motorway which passes through Livorno, on October 3 during a general strike promoted by several Italian unions in solidarity with members of the Global Sumud Flotilla. (Photo by: Giacomo Sini / The Progressive Magazine)
On the first day of the strike, thousands of demonstrators gathered at Varco Valessini, an access point to the harbor at the Porto di Livorno. Led an antifascist port workers’s collective called the Gruppo Autonomo Portuali (GAP) alongside the grassroots trade union Unione sindacale di Base (USB), several city-levelorganizations, and a student collective called Scuola di Carta, they pitched tents and set up a permanent day-and-night protest in front of Wharf 42 at the Molo Italia, where a ship owned by the U.S.-citizen owned Schuyler Line Navigation Company (SLNC) was scheduled to dock at the port the following day.
Protesters walk toward the pier at Varco Valessini, an access point along the harbor at the Porto di Livorno, on September 22. (Photo by: Giacomo Sini / The Progressive Magazine)
SLNC’s Severn, a U.S.-flagged bulk carrier used mainly for military cargo, had been the subject of a previous protest in Livorno in May. The ship regularly stops at Livorno because it serves the large U.S. military base at Camp Darby in the nearby province of Pisa. Documentation by the watchdog site Weapon Watch shows that on July 9, the Severn traveled the port in Haifa, Israel, to unload Caterpillar D9 bulldozers supplied by the United States to the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
The Severn was scheduled to arrive in Livorno on September 23 after stopping at the Israeli port of Eilat to load generators and construction equipment bound for Camp Darby, according to the office of the Livorno Prefecture. But the ship was unable to even enter the Italian port—by the afternoon of September 25, the protesters in Livorno had succeeded in preventing the unloading of equipment at Molo Italia. The protesters not only succeeded in breaking a link in the Israeli defense supply chain, but also hampered, for the first time in eighty years, the military logistics of the U.S. base at Camp Darby.
A few days after the Severn incident, leaders of the protest movement learned that the Virginia, a container ship owned by the Israeli company Zim Integrated Shipping Services, was scheduled to arrive at the port. The ship had initially attempted to dock in Genoa on September 27, but instead redirected toward Livorno after more than 25,000 people in Genoa took to the streets in protest. Reports of the Virginia’s arrival in Livorno had already prompted The Italian Federation of Transport Workers–Italian General Confederation of Labour (FILT–CGIL) to call a protest at the Darsena Toscana terminal, where the ship was due to arrive. Yet another well-attended joint event was held later that afternoon at Darsena Toscana, organized this time by GAP.
Participants led by a network of local antifascist collectives, grassroots trade unions, dockers, and students block the departure of a passenger ship on October 1, in solidarity with members of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which was intercepted by Israeli authorities that day. (Photo by: Giacomo Sini / The Progressive Magazine)
On the morning of September 30, when the Virginia arrived at a port dock at the Porto di Livorno, GAP released a video denouncing Zim, claiming that some of the containers waiting to be loaded onto the ship contained NATO military equipment. “No unloading, loading, or storage operations will be carried out on that ship,” the organizers announced on their social media pages on September 30, adding that “Livorno, its collectives, and dockworkers have made themselves clear: We will no longer be complicit in the Zionist economy and the ongoing genocide.”
When the Virginia docked at Darsena Toscana on the morning of September 30, regular operations had halted, and the dock was filled instead with protesters, crossing their arms, chanting slogans, and sounding the horns of their cars and work vehicles. With the help of tens of thousands of regular Italian residents, and despite threats of potential disciplinary action made to the striking port workers by the management of the port terminal, the Virginia ultimately failed to upload or unload any cargo—a few hours after the ship’s arrival, Livorno Prefect Giancarlo Dionisi announced that it would be departing the port.
Protesters block one of the main entrances to Livorno’s harbor during the general strike on October 3. More than 20,000 people in Livorno participated in the general strike. (Photo by: Giacomo Sini / The Progressive Magazine)
The working-class struggle in Livorno against war and rearmament has since continued through subsequent general strikes, blockades of the Porto di Livorno, and the mobilization of tens of thousands of people joining forces in solidarity with Palestinians under siege. And with more than two million people taking to the streets across more than 100 cities nationwide, the movement for Palestine solidarity in Italy is far larger than Livorno.
[Giacomo Sini was born in Pisa, Italy, but has lived in Livorno his entire life. He obtained a degree in social sciences at Pisa University in 2014, and has worked as a freelance journalist and photojournalist across fifty countries.
Dario Antonelli born in Livorno, Italy, in 1988. He started working as a freelance journalist in 2020 covering social change, workers issues, and migration.]
