Udine Mayor Alberto Felice De Toni has urgently appealed to Italy’s Foreign Minister, the Israeli Ambassador to Italy, and the Mayor of Tel Aviv to establish dedicated humanitarian channels or priority corridors for delivering life-saving medical equipment to Gaza. De Toni specifically highlighted the months-long blockade of dozens of Italian-donated pediatric ventilators for newborns, valued at approximately €700,000 ($750,000), which remain stranded at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport.
The equipment, produced by an Italian company and donated to UNICEF in early 2025, is described as “indispensable for neonatal doctors in Gaza’s hospitals” yet remains unusable. “We know the wretched conditions in which the population of Gaza is barely surviving,” wrote De Toni. He echoed Pope Francis’s words about the “increasingly intense cries of mothers and fathers rising to heaven” in Gaza, who “clutch the lifeless bodies of their children.”
De Toni reiterated the Pope’s “heartfelt appeal for a ceasefire, the release of hostages, and full respect for international humanitarian law as enshrined in the Geneva Conventions.” “We cannot pretend nothing is happening,” the mayor stated. “Blocking humanitarian aid, especially medical devices, is a choice that multiplies death and suffering.” Asserting that “Udine has always stood on the side of peace, for everyone,” De Toni declared “it is time to intervene,” demanding action “by all means to allow these medical devices to resume saving innocent children.”