Maltese MEPs vote Gaza ceasefire: insulin ships ready to sail from Grand Harbour

Maltese MEPs back Gaza ceasefire, sanctions on Hamas, urgent humanitarian aid
By [Author Name], Hot Malta

Valletta – All six Maltese members of the European Parliament have thrown their weight behind a cross-party resolution demanding an “immediate and sustained” ceasefire in Gaza, targeted EU sanctions on Hamas leaders, and a humanitarian corridor that would allow Maltese NGOs to ship medical supplies directly from Grand Harbour to Alexandria and overland to Rafah.

The vote, taken late on Wednesday in Strasbourg, comes after weeks of mounting pressure from Malta’s Catholic diocese, university students and the island’s 4,000-strong Palestinian diaspora, who marched through Floriana last Saturday chanting “Għinna nsalwaw il-festi” – “Help us save the feast” – a reference to the thousands of displaced civilians unable to celebrate Ramadan or Easter.

Speaking to Hot Malta minutes after the ballot, Labour MEP Alex Agius Saliba said the resolution was “not abstract diplomacy” but a lifeline for Gaza’s only remaining Maltese-run clinic, St Jeanne Antide, operated by the Sisters of Charity in Gaza City since 1952. “We have confirmation that our consignment of 2,000 ampoules of insulin is stuck in El-Arish since 7 October,” Agius Saliba said. “The text we approved tonight obliges the European Commission to open a maritime corridor from a ‘neutral Mediterranean port’ – that can be Malta.”

Nationalist MEP Roberta Metsola, fresh from her re-election as President of the Parliament, framed the vote in distinctly Maltese terms. “We are the smallest EU state, but our history is written in sieges: 1565, 1940-42, and now Gaza,” Metsola told reporters. “When our grandparents queued for bread under Luftwaffe bombs they relied on Allied convoys. Maltese people understand what a humanitarian corridor means.”

Local cultural echoes
The debate has resonated far beyond Brussels. On Monday, Archbishop Charles Scicluna used his Lenten homily at St John’s Co-Cathedral to compare Gaza’s ruined churches to the skeletal dome of Mosta’s Rotunda after the 1942 bombing. “We restored our Rotunda in 18 months,” Scicluna said. “Gaza’s faithful deserve the same hope.”

In Sliema, framer and amateur historian Josephine Farrugia has draped a giant Palestinian flag over her 19th-century balcony, alongside the Maltese cross. “My great-uncle drove the SS Talabot convoy in 1942,” she said. “Starvation is not history; it’s a headline. If our MEPs can stop one child from going hungry, the flag stays up.”

Community impact
The vote unlocks €125 million in EU emergency funds, of which Malta is earmarked €1.2 million to channel through local NGOs. Moviment Graffitti has already applied to charter the Captain Morgan vessel Europa II, usually used for sunset cruises, to ferry 150 tonnes of flour, powdered milk and pediatric antibiotics. “We can load at Boiler Wharf and be in Alexandria in 48 hours,” coordinator Andre Callus said. “All we need is the green light from Transport Malta and a naval escort past the Libyan SAR zone.”

Meanwhile, the University of Malta’s Arab Cultural Society reported a 300 % spike in Arabic-language course enrolments since January. “Students want to volunteer as interpreters when the supplies land,” society president Leila Abdel-Hamid explained. “Language is solidarity.”

Sanctions on Hamas: a fine line
The resolution also empowers the EU to freeze assets of Hamas officials, including those with dual nationality. Maltese financial intelligence unit FIAU has identified one account held by a Malta-registered consultancy with suspected links to Hamas’s political bureau. “We are talking about a €180,000 balance held by a company with a Valletta mailing address,” FIAU director Kenneth Farrugia confirmed. “The funds have already been temporarily frozen; the EP vote turns that into a permanent EU-wide order.”

Yet the sanctions clause has stirred unease among some Palestinian-Maltese families. “My cousin in Gaza voted Hamas in 2006 because they built the only pharmacy in our village,” said Birkirkara shop-owner Rami Zumot. “Sanction the rockets, not the nurses.” MEP Metsola countered that the measures are “surgical” and include humanitarian exemptions for medical supplies.

What happens next
The European Commission has 14 days to present an operational plan to member states. Malta’s Foreign Ministry has offered the use of AFM patrol boat P21 as escort and earmarked 8,000 sqm of warehouse space at Ħal Far for incoming donations. A national telethon on TVM on 30 March will raise additional funds under the slogan “Minn Malta, b’qalbna” – From Malta, with heart.

Conclusion
For an island whose national anthem prays for “Ħares, Mulej, kif dejjem int ħarist” – “Guard, Lord, as ever you have guarded” – the vote is more than geopolitics; it is a reflection of Malta’s own memory of siege and survival. From the knights’ ration books to WWII convoys, Maltese history is a ledger of humanitarian close-calls. By backing ceasefire, sanctions and aid, Malta’s MEPs are writing the next page in that ledger – not in ink, but in insulin, flour and the shared bread of two Mediterranean shores.