Stop The Genocide banner unfurled on Mont Blanc

On Friday 29 May a small group of Italian mountaineers unfurled a 'Stop the Genocide' banner with a Palestinian flag on the summit of Mont Blanc, in protest against the devastating Israeli offensive in Gaza.

The initiative has been described by mountain guide Roberto Rossi as "a silent and desperate cry from the highest point of the Alps, directed at European politicians, urging them to intervene immediately — by any means necessary - to halt Netanyahu and the Israeli government as they perpetrate an unprecedented slaughter of a defenseless people—children dead, others maimed, civilians tortured and starved. A landscape of despair and terror."

As a result of Israel’s 11-week blockade on aid entering the territory, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that "the entire 2.1 million population of Gaza is facing prolonged food shortages, with nearly half a million people in catastrophic conditions of hunger, acute malnutrition, starvation, illness, and death." The agency describes this as "one of the world’s worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time."

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry (MoH), cited by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Israel’s military offensive since October 7, 2023 has resulted in the killing of over 54,000 Palestinians, over half of them women and children, while more than 124,000 Palestinians have been injured. Israel launched its offensive in response to Hamas’ October 7 attacks, which killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.

The banner unfurled on Mont Blanc is the latest in a series of similar initiatives. In June 2024 a team of climbers hung a banner for 24 hours on El Capitan in Yosemite reading 'Stop the Genocide'