On 16 and 17 July 2025, dockworkers at the port of Piraeus blocked the unloading of five containers carrying 75 tonnes of military-grade steel from the Cosco Pisces, bound for Israel Military Industries. The permanent picket was organised by the dockworkers’ union Ενεδεπ, following the transfer of the containers from the Ever Golden vessel. The Cosco Pisces then departed from Piraeus on 21 July without offloading the cargo and is now en route to La Spezia, where it is expected to arrive on the morning of 25 July. This development has prompted the Italian grassroots union Usb to call for mobilisation. “At the time of writing, there are no scheduled unloading operations for the contested containers nor any loading of other military goods at either of the Ligurian ports, but we will be monitoring the situation very closely,” stated the union.
Usb has nevertheless issued a warning: “Should the situation change and dockworkers be involved in any loading or unloading of this material, Usb Mare e Porti is ready to call an immediate strike.” Regardless, on the morning of 25 July, a group of activists will hold a sit-in outside Genoa’s city hall, demanding that “our port be declared off-limits to ships heading to or arriving from Israel, as part of our struggle for peace and humanity against the genocide in Palestine, and against war in all its forms.” In the afternoon, a public assembly will take place “to denounce the plan to turn the outer breakwater into a massive war infrastructure using funds allocated to rearmament and diverted from essential services.”
This is only the latest in a string of protests across Europe against the shipping of military equipment to Israel. The wave of actions began in Piraeus on 18 October 2024, when dockworkers prevented the loading of a container with 22 tonnes of ammunition onto the Marla Bull. In June, three significant actions took place: on the 4th in Marseille Fos, where the CGT union imposed a “workers’ seizure” of 19 pallets of machine gun components; on the 6th when the Calp-Usb union inspected the Zim Contship Era in Genoa without finding military cargo; and from the 8th to 9th in Salerno, where Filt and Usb diverted another Zim container ship.
Further protests have been held in Barcelona, where on 11 July a shipment of 122 tonnes of steel was cancelled, and in Sweden, where the Sdu union imposed a six-day nationwide blockade between January and February on all military shipments to Israel. Moreover, on 21 July, the Maltese government barred entry to the Dutch vessel Eendracht, which was carrying 75 tonnes of missile components bound for Imi.
