Calabria, over one hundred municipalities display the Palestinian flag. “Let’s stop the massacre”

From Sila to the sea, from the Ionian to the Tyrrhenian. Over one hundred Calabrian municipalities have decided to display the Palestinian flag from the balconies of the town hall to protest against the massacre underway in Gaza. The initiative, which started from an appeal on social media, has been joined not only by small and medium-sized towns, but also by the provincial capitals.

"This collective initiative is a cry of pain and a strong appeal to the international community, to Europe and to individual governments. It is a symbol of solidarity and a warning to urgent action", explains Pina Condò , an expert in institutional communication who launched the initiative. Which has convinced across the board.

The Palestinian flag flies not only in Reggio Calabria, Catanzaro, Vibo Valentia and Cosenza , administered by the centre-left, but also in Lamezia Terme , where recent elections confirmed the centre-right majority, although leaving the choice of mayor to a future ballot, and Crotone , where the mayor Antonio Voce recently joined Forza Italia.

“We must stop the genocide, stop the massacre of children in Gaza. From Reggio Calabria we shout it out loud, proudly displaying the Palestinian flag on the facade of Palazzo Alvaro, joining the chorus of many other Italian, European and world cities that are asking to stop the massacre. The violence must be stopped, immediately,” wrote the mayor of the Calabrian city on the Strait, Giuseppe Falcomatà , on social media, while in Cosenza the city council approved a motion that invites the Italian government and the EU to “officially recognize the State of Palestine, within the borders prior to 1967 and with Jerusalem as its shared capital.”

The initiative was supported not only by municipalities such as Riace, the town of Mimmo Lucano's welcome, or Cinquefrondi and Polistena, which for some time with motions and orders of the day have sided with the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank, but also by very small communities that are far from the Strip. And where flags were missing, the mayors asked for help from tailors or used their imagination.

In Spezzano della Sila, a town in the province of Cosenza with less than five thousand inhabitants, in order to display the flag, people started drawing and coloring it.

Even in the Regional Council something is moving. Pd and 5s have presented a joint motion to ask the region to recognize the State of Palestine, while the mixed group has urged to interrupt all economic and institutional relations.