Dear Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani, this is not just a letter. It is a cry. Because what has been happening in recent weeks to young Palestinian parents admitted to Italy with scholarships is not a bureaucratic misunderstanding: it is inhumane blackmail. These people, who have already fled from war, are being asked to choose between the opportunity to study and the right to keep their children by their side.
A voice on the phone, from the Italian Consulate General in Jerusalem, puts them at a crossroads that no human being should know: "The next evacuation is ready. You will be on this list. But your child cannot come with you." "What do you mean?" asks the young mother, incredulous. "Tell me what you have decided: will you leave without your child or will you give up?" Three times the same question, cold, urgent: "Without your child or give up?" And then silence. Aisha trembles, replies: "I cannot without my child."
And on the other end – click – the communication is cut off.
This, Minister, is not an administrative act. It is an act of inhumanity. A system that seeks to push a parent to leave their child behind a border – promising a "subsequent reunification" that Italian law, the Constitution, and international conventions do not provide for those entering on a student visa. It is blackmail disguised as an opportunity.
Last year, she showed the country a face of humanity that made us proud. When I asked her to evacuate eight amputee children from Gaza, she responded in front of the cameras: "Are there minors? If there are minors, we will take them out." And she did. Two weeks later, those children were in Italy. It was a gesture that reminded everyone that Italy is not an indifferent country. That, beyond flags and governments, it knows how to choose compassion as the highest form of justice.
Today, Minister, I ask you: do not allow that same country to ask a father or a mother to leave a child under bombs to come study. Do not allow Italy's name to be associated with such moral blackmail. Italian law is clear. The Consolidated Immigration Act (articles 29 and 30), EU Directive 2016/801, the ECHR (article 8), and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (articles 9 and 10) recognize that the family members of students with study visas must be able to enter "together." Not "after," not "maybe." Together. Because the right to education cannot come at the expense of the right to parenthood. And there is more: family units are not just a private value to be protected, but a social good for the very country that welcomes.
Intact families mean balance, strength, rootedness. They mean children growing up in safety, parents who can study, work, contribute. Separating them not only violates human rights: it is a political and social mistake that generates loneliness, fragility, and enormous human costs – on both sides of the border.
Minister, these are not abstract words. Behind every phone call, there is a life in limbo. Today I am leaving for Cairo to take away five children. Their reunification with their mother – their father has been killed – has finally been authorized. But only after their nine-year-old sister died of rabies from a dog bite. The siblings saw her die behind glass, alone, without their parents. They buried her by themselves. And the mother, in Europe with another paraplegic daughter due to a missile, can no longer stand from the pain. She has lost twelve family members in a year. And she still has to justify wanting her children with her.
I wonder: what advantage does a country have that saves bodies but abandons bonds? What sense does it make to open universities but close the doors to the children of those who enter?
We ask you, with the same trust that moved us when we evacuated the small injured, to intervene immediately: allow Palestinian students with scholarships to leave with their children. We are ready, as we were then, to provide you with a complete list and all the necessary documentation to prove housing and income requirements. A new evacuation will happen very soon.
We hope to see in that list the values we believe in: the right of women to study, the right of families to stay united, the right to life.
With respect, with pain, and with hope.