Malta leads EU cry of ‘death & destruction’ over Gaza, islanders rally with candles, boats and bread

# EU says Israel’s Gaza City assault spells ‘death’, ‘destruction’ – Maltese MEPs lead calls for ceasefire as islanders rally in Valletta

Valletta’s Republic Street fell silent for 60 seconds on Tuesday evening as hundreds of Maltese protesters—grandmothers clutching rosaries, students waving Palestinian keffiyehs, and tourists who had wandered into the candle-lit vigil—stood outside Parliament to absorb the European Union’s sharpest condemnation yet of Israel’s assault on Gaza City.

“These words are not Brussels jargon,” Green MEP and Malta native Alex Agius Saliba told the crowd, brandishing a phone with the freshly issued EU statement. “When the Union speaks of ‘death’ and ‘destruction’, it is echoing what our grandparents feared during the 1942 blitz on Malta. We know what it means to cower in cellars while bombs fall overhead.”

The EU’s foreign-policy arm declared overnight that the intensified Israeli ground offensive into Gaza’s urban heart “can only bring more death, destruction and descent into chaos”, language diplomats say was pushed hardest by Maltese, Irish and Spanish representatives who drew parallels between the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in the strip and Mediterranean islands that have known siege.

Inside Castille, Prime Minister Robert Abela convened an emergency Cabinet session before dawn, sources told *Hot Malta*. The government is expected to back a parliamentary motion—tabled by Opposition MP Eve Borg Bonello—demanding an immediate ceasefire and the establishment of a humanitarian corridor from Malta to El-Arish in Egypt, using an AFM patrol vessel laden with Maltese-donated medical supplies. Church-backed NGO Caritas Malta has already collected 3.5 tonnes of antibiotics and pediatric dressings in a Qormi warehouse, awaiting clearance.

“Malta is the smallest EU state, but our location makes us a logistical lifeline,” Foreign Minister Ian Borg said in a phone interview from Luxembourg, where EU ministers are debating sanctions. “We have charter companies ready to fly out on 24-hour notice. The question is whether Israel will guarantee safe passage.”

The crisis is also reverberating through Malta’s cultural calendar. The Malta International Arts Festival, due to open next May, cancelled a planned Israeli dance troupe’s residency “in solidarity with civilian victims on both sides”, while Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish—whose work featured in last year’s Mediterranean Literature Festival—has been invited to deliver a free reading at St James Cavalier on 15 December. Bookings opened at noon; by 2 p.m. the 350-seat theatre was at capacity, organisers said.

In Għarb, Gozo, 73-year-old carpenter Ġużeppi Farrugia is carving a traditional Maltese “għadam tal-mejtin” (bread-of-the-dead) tray that will be filled with Palestinian olive oil and distributed after Sunday Mass. “During the war, RAF pilots dropped tins of jam on our roofs. Now we send bread,” he said, shavings curling like scrolls at his feet. “The sea does not separate us; it connects us.”

University of Malta psychology lecturer Dr Angele Abela reports a 40 % spike in calls to the national helpline from parents whose children wake screaming after viewing Gaza footage on TikTok. “Maltese kids see sand-coloured houses that look like their nanna’s in Żejtun, and tanks where they played Fortnite. The cognitive dissonance is traumatic,” she explained.

Meanwhile, restaurateurs in St Julian’s are feeling a quieter blow. Israeli bookings for December—traditionally a lucrative market—have dropped 70 %, according to MHRA data. “We stand with human rights, but we also have staff who rely on Christmas tips,” said chef Reuben Buttigieg, who has introduced a €1 “solidarity surcharge” on every bill, proceeds split between Gaza hospitals and Israeli trauma centres. Receipts carry a QR code linking to the EU ceasefire appeal.

Back in Valletta, as the protest dispersed, 19-year-old student Leila Sammut unfurled a banner stitched from her grandmother’s 1981 Sette Giugno flag. “Malta’s history is a manual on resilience,” she said. “From the Knights to the Blitz, we survived because strangers sent boats. Today we must be those strangers.”

The EU statement may not halt the tanks, but on these limestone streets it has rekindled an old Mediterranean reflex: when the horizon burns, islanders look outward, not away.