AhlulBayt News Agency: Public anger in Italy is intensifying as communities rally against what protesters call the normalization of Israeli aggression through “Zionist tourism.”
On Saturday, demonstrations took place at two different ports against cruise ships arriving from the occupied port of Haifa, according to Italian media reports.
In Olbia, activists gathered in Piazza Elena di Gallura to oppose the docking of the “Crown Iris,” a cruise ship owned by the Israeli company Mano Maritime.
Although the ship’s stop had been canceled months earlier, local organizers insisted the protest was necessary to prevent Sardinia from becoming a “safe passage for violators of international law.”
Protesters rejected efforts to portray Israeli tourism as apolitical, emphasizing that allowing such ships to dock while Israel’s war on Gaza continues would mean welcoming “potential war criminals.”
Meanwhile, in Brindisi, tensions escalated further. Dozens of activists from the “Committee Against the Genocide of Palestinians” gathered at dawn to protest the arrival of the same Israeli-operated cruise ship.
When the "Crown Iris" docked around 8 a.m., Israeli passengers clashed verbally with protesters. Video footage showed passengers making obscene gestures, mock choking motions, and shouting threats such as “Don’t mess with the Israeli people” and “I’ll kill you.”
Protesters carried banners reading “Zionists out” and “end cooperation with Israel,” claiming the ship was transporting “Israeli soldiers disguised as tourists.”
A brief physical confrontation involving shoving, spitting, and shouting forced Italian police to intervene and separate the groups.
Authorities confirmed no injuries or arrests, but the incidents underscored growing tensions between pro-Palestinian civil society groups and Israeli tourism during the ongoing war.
These developments came as hundreds of Palestinians were killed in Gaza amid daily Israeli violations of a ceasefire agreement signed in early October, which had raised hopes of ending the bloodshed.
The war had already taken the lives of tens of thousands of Gazans before the ceasefire was reached.
/129
Your Comment