Malta stages longest solidarity fast: 35 hours without food outside Castille for Gaza

Activists fast for 35 hours outside Castille in solidarity with Gaza
By Hot Malta Staff

Valletta’s Republic Street is no stranger to protest, but the scene that unfolded outside the Prime Minister’s Office this weekend felt different: a circle of Maltese citizens, students, grandparents and children sitting quietly on fold-up chairs, sipping only water, their lips moving in whispered rosaries and Qur’anic verses as the city’s church bells marked the passing hours. From 11 a.m. on Saturday until 10 p.m. on Sunday, more than 120 people took turns to fast for 35 consecutive hours in solidarity with Gaza, where aid agencies report that starvation is now being “weaponised” in the sixth month of Israel’s military offensive.

The vigil, organised by a loose coalition of NGOs, University of Malta student groups and the Malta Palestine Solidarity Network, is believed to be the longest public fast ever held on the island. Participants ranged in age from 17-year-old Aisha Tabone, who finished her last O-level paper on Friday, to 78-year-old Pawlu Mifsud, a retired dockworker from Senglea who recalled surviving on bread and water during the 1940s wartime blockade. “I know hunger,” Mifsud told Hot Malta, his voice cracking after 18 hours without food. “But we had the Red Cross. Gaza has nothing. If fasting for a day and a half is the least we can do, we do it.”

Local context: fasting as resistance
Malta’s fasting tradition runs deeper than Lent. Medieval town archives record “il-ġimgħa l-kbira” processions where entire villages abstained from meat and dairy for three days while Ottoman fleets loomed offshore. That historical memory, organisers say, makes the hunger strike a culturally resonant form of protest. “We didn’t import this tactic; we reclaimed it,” explained Dr. Nadine Falzon, a human-rights lawyer who helped secure the police permit. “Our grandparents fasted against empire; we fast against complicity.”

The timing was deliberate: the 35-hour stretch mirrored the average interval between Israel’s humanitarian pauses, during which food trucks are occasionally allowed to enter southern Gaza. A blackboard updated every 60 minutes showed the grim mathematics—2.2 million under siege, 1.1 million at “catastrophic” hunger levels—while a livestream beamed the vigil to Ramallah cafés and diaspora living rooms from Sydney to Stockholm.

Political ripples
Although Malta officially supports a two-state solution and has sent €5 million in humanitarian aid, activists want the government to endorse South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice and to suspend EU trade upgrades with Israel. On Sunday morning, Foreign Minister Ian Borg stopped briefly to accept a petition signed by 11,000 Maltese. “We will convey your concerns to Brussels,” Borg told the crowd, prompting muted applause and one cry of “Action, not minutes!”

The Nationalist Party, wary of alienating both Catholic voters and the business lobby, issued a cautious statement calling for “balanced engagement”. In contrast, ADPD chairperson Sandra Gaua joined the fast for six hours, tweeting a photo of her glucose-monitoring watch with the caption “Solidarity has no glycaemic index.”

Community impact: beyond the square
By dusk, the protest had morphed into an impromptu village festa minus the food trucks. Someone produced a guitar; children chalked watermelon flags on the cobblestones; an elderly Gozitan woman distributed bay-leaf sprigs “for strength”. Restaurants across the street reported a 30 % drop in lunch receipts but a 50 % spike in takeaway orders handed directly to the vigil. “We sold out of ftira biż-żejt by 2 p.m.,” laughed Sarah Camilleri, manager of Upper Barrakka’s Café du Balcon. “Protest tourism is real.”

University chaplain Fr. Jimmy Bonnici noted a surge in inter-faith curiosity. “We had Muslims teaching Christians how to rinse their mouths without swallowing water, and nuns sharing Lenten recipes with hijabi students,” he said. “Malta’s secular generation is discovering that solidarity can be spiritual without being sectarian.”

Health services were discreetly present: two medical students tracked blood-pressure readings on a clipboard, while Mater Dei hospital dispatched a mobile hydration station stocked with electrolyte sachets. No one fainted; three grandmothers celebrated breaking their fast at 10 p.m. with a single date each, eliciting cheers louder than any political chant.

What next?
Organisers vow to escalate. A flotilla of fishing boats plans to sail from Marsaxlokk to Gaza in July carrying medical supplies, pending maritime clearance. Meanwhile, a petition calling on Malta to divest from Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit has already gathered 4,000 signatures. “Fasting ends, but the strike continues,” said student leader Yasmin Hassan, eyes ringed with fatigue yet blazing. “Tonight we eat; tomorrow we lobby.”

As cleaners swept away the last watermelon rinds and votive candles, Republic Street resumed its Saturday-night rhythm of pastizzi queues and henna-dotted tourists. But something lingered in the air—an awareness that Malta’s famed hospitality can extend beyond its shores, and that a small nation’s hunger, even measured in hours, can echo across continents.