Nearing Gaza, ‘peace’ flotilla rocks Italy, throwing government into political storm

For Italy’s center-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Global Sumud Flotilla has become a tempestuous issue that threatens to unmoor her government.

For weeks, the flotilla — comprising more than 40 international aid vessels — has dominated Italian headlines. As of Tuesday morning, the fleet was roughly 150 nautical miles from Gaza’s shores and is set to reach the Strip within the coming days.

Italy’s delegation includes several dozen participants, among them lawmakers from the main opposition parties.

“Flotilla, alarm in Italy,” warned the front page of Corriere della Sera on Monday. La Repubblica and La Stampa carried similar headlines such as “Flotilla, too many risks.” Coverage of the flotilla has been repeatedly featured on front pages over the past several days.

“I am not surprised, given the Italian tradition of dialogue and peace-building,” Arturo Scotto, a center-left Democratic Party MP, told The Times of Israel in a phone interview on Monday from the boat Karma, supported by the left-wing Italian nonprofit ARCI, which organizes cultural and recreational activities.

“The images coming from Gaza are devastating, showing almost two years of unrelenting carnage,” Scotto added. “This shared sense of urgency has brought together secular citizens and Catholics, young and old, workers and entrepreneurs — cutting across broad swaths of society.”

Scotto said he was the first Italian MP to visit Israel and the areas devastated by Hamas in December 2023. He described the attacks as terrorism and stressed that he has Israeli friends and long-standing ties with liberal movements in the country. Now firmly convinced Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, in many ways Scotto embodies the anguish felt by many who identify with Italy’s center-left over Israel’s war in Gaza.

In recent weeks, some polls have suggested that support for Israel has declined, even among conservative voters who in recent years have tended to be more sympathetic toward the Jewish state across the Western world.

A survey by the Italian polling company Izi, released on Saturday during the popular talk show “L’Aria che tira,” found that 87.8% of respondents favored recognizing a Palestinian state — including 99.8% of left-wing voters and 73.7% of supporters of the coalition parties.

Another poll, conducted by OnlyNumbers and published in La Stampa on September 15, asked respondents to choose their preferred future for Gaza. Nearly 40% opted for a Palestinian state (including 25% of voters for Meloni’s party, Brothers of Italy), 21% supported a temporary international administration, and 11% favored extending Israeli control with humanitarian guarantees. About 26% of respondents did not provide an answer.

Neither poll provided information on sample sizes or margins of error.

Demonstrators gather to march to express their support for the Global Sumud Flotilla that was sailing toward Gaza, in Rome on September 7, 2025 (Filippo Monteforte / AFP)

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators have repeatedly taken to the streets in solidarity with Gaza. Several universities and academics have cut ties — or signaled their intention to do so — with Israeli counterparts, and dockworkers have blocked Israel-bound cargoes.

Navigating increasingly choppy water

In recent months, opposition parties, too, have increasingly framed the plight of Gazans as a “genocide,” placing it at the center of political debate to pressure Meloni and her allies, who have sought to maintain a more middle-of-the-road stance.

A vivid demonstration of how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is currently at the forefront of the Italian domestic arena came as Meloni attended the United Nations General Assembly last week.

Taking the podium, she navigated a delicate balancing act.

On the one hand, she stressed the brutality of the October 7, 2023, Hamas atrocities, and rejected the notion that Israel was responsible for the war, “for it was Hamas that started the war,” and could bring “Palestinians’ suffering to an end, by immediately releasing all the hostages.”

On the other hand, she stated that Israel went too far, causing “a slaughter of civilians,” and announced that Italy was going to vote in favor of some of the sanctions against Israel proposed by the European Commission.

“A reaction to an aggression must always respect the principle of proportionality,” Meloni said. “Israel has crossed that line.”

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni speaks during the General Debate of the United Nations General Assembly, in New York City, on September 24, 2025. (Leonardo MUNOZ / AFP)

In the wake of several major European countries — including France, Spain, and the UK — recognizing a Palestinian state in recent weeks, for the first time, Meloni indicated that Italy was prepared to follow suit, but with two conditions: the release of all hostages in Gaza and the disarmament of Hamas.

Much of the international media framed the speech as a sharp critique of Israel by one of Europe’s most conservative, Trump-aligned governments. In Italy, attention centered on Meloni’s comments about the flotilla, which were delivered to journalists on the sidelines of the UN Assembly.

“It is gratuitous, dangerous, and irresponsible,” Meloni said. “There is no reason to risk one’s own safety to deliver aid that the Italian government and relevant authorities could have dispatched in a few hours.”

She condemned the unattributed September 23 drone attack on the flotilla when off the shores of Greece and noted that Italy had sent a military ship to provide assistance if needed. At the same time, she expressed hope that the flotilla would accept Italy’s mediation offer and allow the delivery of aid to be completed through the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which would distribute it in Gaza, rather than the activists on the boats themselves. Meloni said the mediation effort is being coordinated by Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.

“It is not acceptable to put people’s safety at risk in initiatives that, more than focusing on aid, seem aimed at creating problems for our government,” she added.

Leader of the Italian Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, center, cheers at a party’s rally in central Rome, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

“Sooner or later, someone will have to explain why our prime minister attacks the flotilla more harshly than she ever did with Netanyahu’s massacres,” Democratic party leader Elly Schlein commented in an interview with La Repubblica on Sunday.

“Does she really think that among the hundreds of thousands who rallied for Palestine, there isn’t a single person who voted for her?” Schlein added.

Turbulent times

Highlighting the intersection between the flotilla and Italy’s internal politics, Scotto argued that what he described as the government’s attempt to claim credit for mediation efforts had a counterproductive effect.

Arturo Scotto, a center-left Democratic Party member of the Italian Parliament, on board the boat ‘Karma,’ which is escorting the Global Sumud Flotilla, as it sails towards Gaza in September 2025. (Courtesy Arturo Scotto)

“A certain interference by the Italian government… has not helped the mediation that the patriarchate [already] had with the flotilla leaders,” he said. “It has certainly slowed things down.”

With the pope in Rome, Italians maintain a close connection to the Catholic church, with surveys indicating that nearly four in five still identify as Catholic, even if few attend services regularly. The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierluigi Pizzaballa, enjoys broad respect across the political spectrum.

Yet as of Tuesday morning, the flotilla’s steering committee — composed of activists from nine countries, including Italian Maria Elena Delia — had rejected the offer to distribute aid through the Church. (Delia did not respond to multiple interview requests from The Times of Israel.)

Scotto stressed that he considered the Israeli blockade on Gaza’s waters illegal, but he, along with fellow lawmakers and journalists from several countries aboard the Karma, would not participate in any attempt to breach it. (Israel maintains that international law gives it full authority to enforce the blockade and intercept vessels.)

“I believe the flotilla is acting as a substitute for governments that should have established a maritime humanitarian corridor themselves,” he said. “The mission is fully within international law.”

“Our role on these boats has always been to provide an institutional escort to the flotilla, but we are not part of it,” Scotto added. “We are not going to force the blockade.”

Scotto characterizes Israeli actions in Gaza as genocide and rejects the idea that Italy’s pro-Palestinian protests are driven by anti-Israel sentiment. (Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.)

“Those who protest the genocide in Gaza, to stop the conflict, are a wide range of people who care about peace,” he said. “They have nothing to do with Hamas. They are pacifist movements who say ‘enough’ as they see the brutal images of dead children and famine.”

People march behind a banner reading “Against Genocide Let’s block everything” during a nationwide strike in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and calling for a halt to arms shipments to Israel, in Rome on September 22, 2025. (Andreas SOLARO / AFP)

Scotto also noted that he was mindful of the upcoming Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, which this year falls on Wednesday night and Thursday. He emphasized that it was important for the flotilla not to arrive during the festival “to respect the sensitivity of the Israeli people.”

Mavi Marmara, part II?

Earlier this year, Israel successfully intercepted a yacht carrying Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and others as it attempted to reach Gaza.

This time, however, the flotilla involves more than 40 boats and hundreds of activists, making the operation far more complex. Many fear a repeat of the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, when Israeli commandos boarded a Gaza-bound ship carrying 600 passengers. After encountering violent resistance, the commandos opened fire, killing 10 Turkish activists.

“It is very dangerous,” Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told Corriere della Sera on Sunday.

“I have asked the Israelis for reassurances that there will be no violence, but I do not know who is on board the ships,” he added, suggesting that some activists might not be as peaceful as they claim.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, center left, waves from a boat taking part in a civilian flotilla bound for Gaza, aiming to break the Israeli blockade and deliver humanitarian aid, in Barcelona, Spain, August 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Asked about Tajani’s remarks, as well as Israel’s claims that the flotilla has ties to Hamas, Scotto said he had detected no violent intentions among the participants.

“I do not think there are Hamas militants,” he said.

“There are people from different backgrounds, experiences, cultures, and religions,” he added. “There are differences in tone, language, and biography, but we are talking about disarmed, peaceful, nonviolent activists. All the training sessions were grounded in the doctrine of nonviolence.”

When asked whether he could guarantee that there are no weapons on board the flotilla, Scotto replied, “I really think there aren’t — certainly not on our boat.”

“If you look at all the videos from the boats, including those showing packages of humanitarian aid being opened, you can see that the only ‘weapons’ we carry are those used to feed people,” he said.