Breaking the Chain: The Growing Demand for No Harbour For Genocide

In July 2024, a ship named the Overseas Santorini, a fuel tanker carrying more than 300,000 barrels of military fuel destined for Israel’s warplanes, left Texas bound for occupied Palestine, one of many trips made by the ship since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. On board was fuel for the Israeli jets raining destruction during the ongoing genocide in Gaza. But as the ship attempted to dock in ports across the Mediterranean, it was not met with open harbours but with resistance.

On the docks, crowds gathered: trade unionists, port workers, and activists, waving Palestinian flags and chanting for Gaza. They refused to let the ship pass quietly, blocking its entry and declaring that no harbour should be complicit in genocide. In other places, activists placed pressure on port authorities and states, organised banner drops, or raised awareness in local media. Out of these actions, a growing campaign in ports was born, a grassroots movement determined to break the supply chains enabling Israel’s occupation, apartheid, and genocide.

The defiance against the Overseas Santorini lit a spark. Since then, ships carrying military supplies and “dual use” products—items with both civilian and military functions—have faced similar challenges at ports across the Mediterranean. For example, in Greece, the Port workers in Piraeus Port blocked the shipment of military equipment to Israel. Markos Bekris, president of ENEDEP (the port’s container handling workers’ union), said, “They will not allow the port to become a base to support Israeli massacres against Palestinians.”In Morocco, local protesters rallied against a Maersk cargo ship carrying F-35 parts for Israel. In France, French and Italian dockworkers refused to load or handle shipments of military equipment that were planned to transit through Marseille and then to Italy and to Israel. In Marseille-Fos, dockworkers from the CGT union publicly stated that their port should not be used to supply the Israeli army. In Rotterdam, protesters blocked traffic over the docking of a ship carrying F-35 parts from Israel. In Italy,  dockworkers at the Ligurian ports blocked the unloading of five containers carrying 75 tonnes of military-grade steel from the Cosco Pisces, bound for Israel Military Industries. The permanent picket was organised by the dockworkers’ union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), following the transfer of the containers from the Ever Golden vessel. 

These moments proved the power of collective action: ordinary people could disrupt the flow of weapons and fuel to Israel. But they also revealed the movement’s limits. Too often, activists had to rely on last-minute leaks, scrambling at the eleventh hour to mount a response. The No Harbour for Genocide (NHG) campaign was born from these lessons. For months, we have tracked and analysed shipping routes, identified consistent patterns, and built a network ready to act before a ship even reaches port. By connecting local struggles into a coordinated international effort, NHG aims to magnify the impact of grassroots resistance, ensuring that those complicit in genocide can no longer rely on silence or secrecy.

How Trade Unions Have Resisted Complicity in Genocide

Over 90% of the world trade is carried by sea. There is a long history of transnational solidarity among port and dock workers. Throughout history, trade unions, workers, and port communities have consistently taken action to oppose involvement in genocidal and colonial violence by refusing to handle cargo that facilitates such oppression.  

One famous example is the international dockworker boycotts against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s–80s. Another port action that disrupted arms shipments to oppressive regimes is the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) shutting down all US ports to Pakistani arms shipments in 1971 during the Bangladeshi genocide. This was the first time in US history that ports were shut down in solidarity against genocide.

Port resistance to Israel’s genocide builds on this proud legacy of worker and community organising against colonialism and oppression, learning key lessons and seeking to solidify and magnify the impact of local actions. For example, historical mobilisations have proven the importance of working with a variety of groups and employing a variety of tactics, depending on local circumstances. In some places, actions have been led by workers, whose centrality to the supply chain makes them difficult to ignore. Elsewhere, there have been cross-community alliances and mobilisations, as well as pressure campaigns. In each case, the composition of the port, workforce, and national political circumstances have determined the best way forward in each location.

Another lesson is that clarity and repeatability matter; past campaigns succeeded when local groups had a clear target and established rules of engagement. This is why NHG uses a patterns-based blocklist; it provides unions and port groups with clear, repeatable targets instead of one-off actions. This provides a focal point for actions that can unify individual actions into a focused campaign of pressure with strategic impact.

Further, in the context of the current genocide, legality matters and can be mobilised to pressure public bodies to take action and to protect workers taking action. Historical victories often combined direct action with legal and political arguments that made clear the obligations of states to prevent the transit of weapons through their ports. NHG highlights the Genocide Convention (Article I, duty to prevent/avoid complicity) and supplies legal resources to help unions and councils justify their refusal to provide services.

Coordination across ports is effective. While isolated actions can be rerouted, coordinated actions—simultaneous pressure across a network of ports—actually cut off lifelines by ensuring that certain ships are refused harbour, raising the cost of their operation with the objective of making their commercial operation unviable. NHG’s blocklist and coordination aim to replicate the cross-port solidarity that succeeded against past regimes.

Why Western Powers Continue Fuelling Israel’s Genocide

In 1979, the writer James Baldwin stated that “The state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of western interests… the Palestinians have been paying for the British colonial policy of ‘divide and rule’ and for Europe’s guilty conscience for more than 30 years.” His words remain strikingly relevant to why, decades later, Western powers still sustain Israel’s violence, even in the face of genocide and increasing global condemnation, by recognising this deeper history of Israel as the West’s colonial project, rooted in and indispensable to Western geopolitical designs.

Israel’s ongoing assault on Palestine is only possible because it is embedded in a wider imperial network. Europe and the US see Israel as a crucial outpost for their strategic, economic, and military interests in the Middle East. This is why they continue to supply the weapons, fuel, and other materials that enable the bombardment of Gaza, despite irrefutable evidence of genocide in Gaza. The continuity of these supply lines signals that Western states see Israel as integral to their geopolitical order, regardless of the human cost.

Ultimately, the reason these supplies continue is because imperial powers view Palestinian lives as expendable in the maintenance of their order. That is precisely what makes grassroots intervention so urgent: if governments will not cut these lifelines, then unions, port workers, and local communities must step in to enforce the principles of international law and impose an embargo from below.

Why Maritime Fuel Transfers Are Critical Leverage Points

As we write this, it has been nearly two years, over 700 days, since Israel launched its assault on the people of Gaza. The latest figures place the death toll at over 68,000 Palestinians, with thousands more still buried under the rubble. Amidst this wanton slaughter, the world has seen the bifurcated logic of Israel’s imperial sponsors: an unbridled defence of commerce and barely a word in defence of human life.

Maritime fuel transfers are the lever points where ordinary people can actually make a difference.  Without these fuel transfers, genocide grinds to a halt. Every airstrike, every tank invasion, every drone relies on the diesel and jet fuel delivered by sea. Cutting or delaying those transfers physically stops warplanes from flying and tanks from advancing.

Maritime transfers are a critical point of intervention as they constitute a chokepoint in the supply chain to Israel’s genocidal regime and open up scope for trade unionists, activists, human rights organisations, and port authorities to take action.

Unlike distant government offices, ports are tangible, local places. Ordinary people can pressure councils, unions, and port authorities to block or delay the arrival of these ships. When a ship docks to refuel the Israeli war machine, workers, councils, and states along the route become part of the chain of genocide. But history shows that these chains can be broken.

These transfers tie our infrastructure, taxes, and labour to the machinery of genocide. To ignore it is to allow our harbours to become complicit. That is why ordinary people should care. Stopping fuel and weapons shipments is one of the clearest, most immediate ways to choke the machinery of genocide, and it is within reach of collective action from below.

The Pattern-Based Strategy for Disrupting Genocide Supply Chains

The No Harbour for Genocide campaign takes a strategic, patterns-based approach to interrupt the maritime supply chains that sustain Israel’s military operations and settlements. By identifying vessels, operators, owners, flags, insurers, and ports consistently involved in transporting arms, fuel, coal, and other military supplies, NHG helps coordinate actions across the Mediterranean, focusing on the chokepoints where ordinary people, port workers, and unions have direct leverage. Local groups map port operations and key actors to organise targeted interventions. 

At the same time, the campaign coordinates nationally and internationally with trade unions, legal experts, activists, and allied organisations to maximise impact. This blocklist approach not only clarifies which vessels are most complicit but also provides a legal and moral rationale for states, port authorities, and workers to refuse service to them. Parallel strategies, including legal challenges, media advocacy, shareholder pressure, and BDS campaigns, ensure that local actions contribute to a broader, coherent, and sustained disruption of the genocide supply chain.

In the context of the ongoing genocide, the approach is an effective way to organise for arms, energy and trade embargoes, and other anti-normalisation campaigns.

Mediterranean Ports Rise in Solidarity: Direct Action Against Genocide Supply Lines

Genoa has emerged as a particularly active hub in the Mediterranean: two ships on NHG’s blocklist have already been blocked at the port, and local activists and unions are continuing to organise coordinated actions. 

Genoa has recently been the centre of further high-profile direct action in the form of the Global Sumud Flotilla. Boats carrying over 300 tonnes of humanitarian aid for Gaza departed from Genoa and Barcelona, and Italian dockworkers, including members of the USB union and the independent collective CALP, have threatened to block all shipments to Israel if communication with the flotilla is lost or if Israel attempts to intercept the vessels. “If They Block the Flotilla, We Block Everything!”

At a torchlit rally in Genoa, dockworkers warned that up to 14,000 containers shipped annually from the region could be halted in solidarity with Gaza, demonstrating the tangible leverage that local port workers hold. Marseille and Catania are also priority nodes, with local groups forming plans or already taking action to challenge vessels on the blocklist. Combined, these actions highlight the campaign’s strategy of linking grassroots mobilisation, union power, and international coordination to disrupt Israel’s military and energy supply chains, making ports active points of resistance rather than passive conduits.

Local groups in Marseille are monitoring blocklist vessels, mapping port operations, and coordinating with unions to challenge shipments as they arrive. The city has a strong history of labour-led solidarity campaigns, making it a strategic site for both direct actions and sustained mobilisation. Catania in Sicily similarly serves as a priority site, where local activists are working alongside NHG to develop targeted interventions and maintain pressure on vessels supplying military and energy materials to Israel. These coordinated actions across Genoa, Marseille, Catania, and other Mediterranean ports illustrate NHG’s approach: combining grassroots activism, union power, and international coordination to transform key ports from passive points in the supply chain into leverage points that can materially disrupt Israel’s war logistics.

Building Lasting Networks to Block Genocide Supply Chains

The No Harbour for Genocide campaign is continuing to expand and coordinate action around its recently launched blocklist of 36 “genocide carriers”, vessels that have consistently supplied arms and fuel to Israel during the genocide in Gaza. This blocklist is a regularly updated, public, evidence-based dataset providing IMO numbers, flag states, operating companies, and links to real-time tracking platforms. It represents months of detailed research and monitoring of vessels that show apparent, repeated involvement in sustaining Israel’s military operations, illegal settlements, and apartheid policies. By focusing on this targeted list, NHG enables activists, unions, and legal teams to channel efforts strategically, avoiding uncertainty inherent in containerised shipments or sporadic deliveries and turning solidarity into tangible disruption of genocidal supply chains.

Moving forward, NHG’s strategy is to unify and coordinate local actions across Mediterranean and global ports to magnify their collective impact. Activist toolkits, legal advice, and continuous updates to the blocklist will allow port-based groups, policymakers, trade unions, and civil society to act quickly and safely, refusing safe harbour to vessels implicated in genocide. The campaign also integrates legal, advocacy, media, and BDS strategies to apply pressure on owners, operators, insurers, and states connected to these vessels. Even after the current assault ends, NHG intends to maintain the networks, research infrastructure, and regional coordination mechanisms it has built, providing a lasting framework for accountability, rapid response to future conflicts, and sustained grassroots pressure to prevent complicity in arms transfers and human rights violations.

When the genocide ends, the No Harbour for Genocide campaign will continue because the end of active violence does not mean that the underlying supply chains and systems that enable it have disappeared. The vessels, operators, port networks, and maritime infrastructure that have been complicit in supplying arms, fuel, and military resources to Israel remain in place, and the commercial and logistical routes they depend on will still exist.