World
Dockworkers Worldwide Strike to Halt Arms Shipping to Israel on Oct. 30
More than 25 dockworkers’ trade unions in at least 110 ports across 22 countries are going on strike on October 30. The action, called the International Day of Action of Dockworkers and Port Workers, is described by participants as historic in scale. The unions’ main demand is an immediate end to the genocide of the Palestinian people and all imperialist wars.
Markos Bekris, leader of Greece’s dockworkers’ union ENEDEP, told Al Jazeera that weapons need transport, infrastructure and workers’ hands to reach their destination, and that is where the unions’ power lies. Francesco Staccioli, national secretary of transport and ports in Italy’s USB trade union, said the unions will act according to their own principles but will be connected to the same struggle.
The strike will involve regular working hours in most ports, but 24‑hour strikes have been called in France, Italy, India, Greece and Turkey, and up to two‑hour strikes in Morocco, Cyprus and other ports. In France, Italy, India, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay and the west coast of the United States, unions have pledged to participate.
No Harbour for Genocide (NHG), a campaign that researches weapon supply chains, supports the action and notes that maritime infrastructure facilitates military trade within the context of the genocide in Palestine. NHG said that between August 2025 and September 2026 it tracked 315 shipments of components for Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, moving through 56 commercial ports in 29 countries. All 56 ports are expected to be on strike on October 30, potentially leaving more than $2 billion worth of cargo idle.
The Palestinian labour movement endorsed the strike and urged unions to increase BDS pressure to end all state, corporate and institutional complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide.
The participating Mediterranean ports—Genoa, Livorno, Gioia Tauro, Marseille, Piraeus and Tangier—handle 63 percent of all container activity in the sea, and the striking ports hold 74 percent of container activity between southern France and Piraeus. Worldwide, the ports taking part handle 13.5 percent of global shipping.
Linda Maggiore, an Italian journalist and activist, said that she has found evidence of increased weapons shipments from Italy’s major ports to Israel since the start of the war on Gaza. She added that a regulation on military mobility in Europe is about to be approved, which would make it easier for arms to be transferred without scrutiny.
In Greece, union leader Bekris is facing prosecution for a protest in which he and other workers blocked the loading of a container holding 21 tonnes of ammunition destined for Israel in October 2024. He said that dockworkers have a long tradition of refusing to load weapons against other people and that their hands are covered in grease and sweat every day.
The unions’ declaration, adopted in Istanbul in May 2025, calls for the recognition of an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, an end to US‑Israeli wars of aggression in the Middle East and against Iran, and full solidarity with the peoples of Cuba, Venezuela and Sudan.
Frequently asked questions
How many ports and countries are participating in the strike?
At least 110 ports across 22 countries.
What is the main demand of the dockworkers’ unions?
An immediate end to the genocide of the Palestinian people and all imperialist wars.