From Valletta to Gaza: How Malta’s Streets Became a Lifeline for Palestine

Valletta’s Republic Street was a river of black, white, red and green on Saturday afternoon as more than 3,000 Maltese marched from City Gate to Parliament in the largest pro-Palestine demonstration the islands have seen in a decade. Organised by a coalition of NGOs, students and migrant-led groups, the rally ended with a mountain of children’s shoes piled on the steps of the House – a haunting reminder of young lives lost in Gaza – while the crowd chanted “Żgħażagħ, ħaddiema, studenti: Malta ma taħdimx bil-demm!” (Youth, workers, students: Malta doesn’t run on blood!).

The turnout stunned even seasoned activists. “We expected 500,” admitted Maram Tabbaa, 24, a Palestinian-Maltese translator who helped coordinate the march. “But buses arrived from Gozo, pensioners wheeled themselves in, and families came with prams. It felt like the whole country woke up.”

Malta’s solidarity with Palestine is neither new nor merely symbolic. From Dom Mintoff’s 1973 recognition of the PLO to the current government’s repeated UN votes for a ceasefire, the islands have long punched above their diplomatic weight. Yet the past six months have seen grassroots pressure intensify, fusing historical empathy with lived multicultural reality. Today, 12% of Malta’s residents were born abroad; among them, nearly 2,000 hold Palestinian or Lebanese papers. Their stories, shared in school halls and parish centres, have shifted the debate from abstract headlines to neighbours’ nightly phone calls checking if relatives in Rafah are still alive.

The cultural ripple is visible. Band clubs in Żejtun and Rabat have replaced festa marches with charity walks; the National Book Council just allocated €20,000 for Arabic translations at the Malta Book Fair; and rapper Kristina Casolani’s latest single “Ħajar” (Stone), shot in the walled alleyways of Mdina, has clocked 400,000 views with its chorus: “Jien minn Malta, qalbi f’Għaza” (I’m from Malta, my heart in Gaza). Even traditional festa fireworks factories are pivoting: the renowned Lija pyrotechnists will stage a silent drone show this August, donating the savings in gunpowder to Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Businesses are feeling the pulse, too. Sliema café Mint has renamed its falafel wrap the “Gaza Wrap,” donating €1 per sale. In three weeks it raised €7,400. Meanwhile, 35 restaurants – from Marsaxlokk fish shacks to Valletta Michelin-starred De Mondion – have signed up for “Olive Oil for Olive Trees,” pledging weekly percentages to replant orchards destroyed in the conflict. “We import 80% of our olive oil anyway,” notes chef Rafel Sammut. “Might as well let the trees grow where they belong.”

University of Malta students have gone further, passing a referendum demanding the institution divest from companies complicit in occupation. The senate will vote next month amid fierce debate. “We’re a micro-state, but our endowment is €400 million,” points out law student Lea Azzopardi. “If we can ban single-use plastics, we can ban profiting from apartheid.”

The Catholic Church, still Malta’s moral compass, is split. Archbishop Charles Scicluna led a candle-lit vigil in St John’s Co-Cathedral, yet some parish priests refused to read his pastoral letter, arguing it “endangered interfaith dialogue” with the small but growing Muslim community. That community, for its part, has responded with openness: the Mariam Al-Batool mosque in Paola hosted a joint “soup and solidarity” evening where Maltese grandmothers traded qassata recipes with Palestinian matriarchs over bowls of freekeh.

Politicians are scrambling to keep up. Foreign Minister Ian Borg told the UN Human Rights Council that Malta supports South Africa’s genocide case, while Opposition leader Bernard Grech called for a bilateral humanitarian corridor using Malta’s new search-and-rescue ship, the LÉ Ireland, currently docked in Grand Harbour. Yet both major parties face internal rifts; a PN councillor in Mosta resigned after sharing far-right memes, while a Labour MP received a no-confidence motion from her own committee for skipping the Republic Street march.

What unites the islands is a sense of scale. “We’re tiny, we’ve been invaded by everyone, we know what it feels like to be erased,” reflects 81-year-old historian Dominic Cutajar, clutching a 1948 photo of his father welcoming Palestinian refugees to the Ħal Far camp. “Solidarity isn’t charity here; it’s memory.”

As the sun set over the Grand Harbour, volunteers swept up candle wax and folded banners. A young boy climbed the bronze Triton, tying a keffiyeh around the statue’s wrist. No one told him to climb down. For a moment, Malta’s limestone walls echoed not with car horns but with the rhythmic clapping of a people who refuse to let distance dilute empathy. The march ended, but the conversation – in kitchens, classrooms and council chambers – is only beginning.