Why Did Gaza’s Victims Take Centre Stage at the Locarno Film Festival?

Protesters at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland commemorated 60,000 named Palestinians killed in Gaza during the festival’s 79th edition, according to Variety, turning a major European cultural gathering into a public act of remembrance. The intervention resonated beyond Switzerland: Belgium belongs to the EU-led Palestine Donor Group, while Belgian cultural institutions, including Film Fest Gent, have pressed the federal government and European Union to take stronger action over Gaza.

The reported list should not be read as an independently verified final death toll. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says its Gaza casualty figures come from the territory’s Ministry of Health and must be attributed accordingly; its July 2026 snapshot also distinguishes people identified by name from a higher reported total. UNRWA said the ministry had reported 73,035 Palestinian deaths by 21 June 2026. The Locarno action’s choice to present names rather than a changing total was therefore both political and human: it sought to return individual identities to a casualty count usually encountered as an abstraction.

That distinction matters for Belgium-based readers because Gaza is simultaneously a foreign-policy question, a humanitarian emergency and a source of debate inside European cultural life. Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot told the Chamber in May that roughly 1,400 people holding Belgian visas remained in Gaza and that a new evacuation operation was not then realistic. The Brussels Times, reporting his remarks, said MPs Meyrem Almaci of Groen, Greet Daems of PTB and Khalil Aouasti of PS had challenged the government over the impasse. Prévot said Belgium had already helped about 1,000 people leave Gaza since October 2023.

At EU level, the response has moved from emergency relief towards the uncertain prospect of reconstruction. The European Commission’s representation in Belgium said in July that Belgium participated in a 65-delegation Palestine Donor Group meeting and that the Team Gaza initiative had assembled €883.6 million for water, sanitation, health, energy, food systems and rubble removal. Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Šuica cautioned, in remarks reported by the Associated Press, that the ceasefire remained fragile and civilian conditions were not improving. The AP also noted that delivery of the pledges and the start of reconstruction remained unclear.

Locarno’s protest belongs to a wider argument about whether film festivals should remain primarily artistic forums or use their public authority to confront war and alleged abuses. The issue is particularly close to Belgium’s film community. Film Fest Gent says it signed the Film Workers for Palestine declaration, and in 2025 it joined Flemish cultural organisations calling for an immediate ceasefire, sustained UNRWA funding, Palestinian recognition, economic sanctions and suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. In April 2026, the Belgian festival’s platform also highlighted MOOOV’s programme of Palestinian films and work by Gaza photojournalist Fatma Hassona.

A different current within European cinema warns that political campaigns can misidentify artists with their governments and narrow the space for difficult work. In a 2026 open letter reported by Variety, Natalie Portman, Justine Triet and Jacques Audiard defended Israeli filmmaker and Netanyahu critic Nadav Lapid against a cultural boycott, calling the effort to exclude him an intellectual failure. Lapid supported political sanctions against the Israeli state but argued that pressure on individual filmmakers could make festivals avoid contentious voices altogether.

The Israeli government, for its part, disputes allegations that its campaign amounts to genocide and says its military objectives have centred on defeating Hamas and protecting Israel following the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023. Those attacks killed about 1,200 people in Israel and involved the taking of hostages. That security framing does not settle questions about civilian harm or compliance with international law, but it remains essential to understanding why Israeli officials reject the language used by many protesters and cultural organisations.

The broader significance of Locarno is not that a festival protest can decide European policy. It is that cultural institutions have become arenas where the limits of neutrality are tested in public. For Belgium, the immediate questions remain concrete: whether visa holders can leave Gaza, when pledged aid will reach civilians, and whether the federal government will support stronger EU measures. For Europe’s festivals, the unresolved question is how to make room for remembrance and protest without treating nationality as political guilt. Further details about the organisers, duration and precise form of the Locarno commemoration still require confirmation beyond the initial report.