Gaza Generation

The Gaza Generation is a term applied to young people, mostly members of Generation Z, where politics have been shaped by the Gaza war and the protests against it. Italian sociologist Donatella della Porta has said that in Italy young people of this kind are called the "Gaza Generation". It is also the title of a 2025 essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Background

Della Porta says Generation Z grew up through austerity, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and, wars, and was shaped politically by protests in solidarity with Palestinians. She has called Israel's campaign in Gaza a genocide. In May 2024, students occupied university campuses in Amsterdam and Utrecht and demanded that their universities cut ties with Israeli institutions. According to El País, those protests later grew to cover university budget cuts and military rearmament.

Commentary

This phrase was created by author Shaan Sachdev in August 2025 as a title for his review published in "Los Angeles Review of Books" of the work written by Pankaj Mishra called "The World After Gaza". Specifically, he mentioned that young progressives, who previously were protesting on the streets of the United States due to police brutality after 2020, started thinking about international affairs when the war broke out. Specifically, he pointed out the "younger and fresher cohort," who refused to accept that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are the same things.

2026 protests in Europe

In October 2026, according to El País, tens of thousands of youngsters took part in protests in France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Albania. In most cases, the cause of the demonstrations was education, housing, and the cost of living; for the connection to Gaza, della Porta was referred to. In France, the protest movements started from public education issues and lasted more than one month involving up to 266,000 participants per day. In Italy, during the weekend of unrest in Milan and other cities, 160 protesters were detained, while 141 police officers received injuries.

The report also pointed out the economic pressure on the young. In August 2026, unemployment among those under 25 years old in the European Union was 15.4%, against 6.1% of the overall population. In France, 74% of the voters under the age of 30 felt that the political elite does not represent their interests.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Albero, Fernando (19 October 2026). "A generation takes to the streets: Young Europeans refuse to accept a future stacked against them". El País. Madrid. Retrieved 2 November 2026.
  2. 1 2 Sachdev, Shaan (9 August 2025). "The Gaza Generation". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2 November 2026.