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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Sopot has become the first city in Poland to terminate its partnership with an Israeli counterpart due to the situation in Gaza, which it describes as a “genocide”.
Sopot, a famous Baltic Sea coastal resort, has been twinned with the Israeli city of Ashkelon since 1993. However, in August this year, a municipal councillor from the left-wing Together (Razem) party, Barbara Brzezicka, called for the partnership to be annulled due to the “genocide perpetrated by Israel in Gaza”.
She noted that Sopot had similarly broken off its partnership with the Russian town of Petergof after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
After the city authorities failed to take action, Brzezicka launched a civic initiative – supported by Together, Amnesty International and local pro-Palestinian activists – to collect signatures in support of a resolution ending the partnership with Ashkelon.
The text of the resolution said that “Israel has been carrying out full-scale ethnic cleansing in Gaza since 2023, which has already claimed tens of thousands of victims, including approximately 20,000 children”.
It also acknowledged “crimes committed by Hamas”, but said that these “do not constitute any justification for the systematic extermination of the civilian population in Gaza”.
“Hamas bears full responsibility for its attacks, and the government of Israel bears full responsibility for the genocide carried out by the Israel Defense Forces,” read the text, quoted by the Gazeta Wyborcza daily
Ending the partnership with Ashkelon would be “a strong political gesture, demonstrating that the slogan ‘Sopot, a city of human rights’ is not an empty one”, it concluded.
The resolution obtained more than the three hundred signatures required from local residents needed to submit it for consideration by the city council.
On Thursday this week, the council voted to adopt it, with nine members in favour and six against. Four more abstained and two did not participate in the vote, reports local news website Trojmiasto.pl.
Among those to oppose the resolution was councillor Jarosław Kempa, who said that “the appropriate step in this situation would be to suspend cooperation or send a letter to the Ashkelon authorities stating that [we] do not agree with what is happening in Gaza”.
“If we break off this cooperation permanently, we will cut off any possibility of even talking to that side,” he added, quoted by news website Onet.
The far-right Confederation party has submitted a resolution to Poland’s parliament condemning Israel’s “genocidal actions” in Gaza, as well as the “criminal terrorist attacks by Hamas”.
It has called on other parties to adopt the resolution in a vote https://t.co/mrbIuzlhAK
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 7, 2025
Another councillor, Natalia Pobłocka, called the resolution one sided, failing to address the “the full context of what is currently happening in Gaza and in Israeli-Palestinian relations”.
Gazeta Wyborcza notes that this is the first time a Polish municipality has broken off relations with an Israel partner over the situation in Gaza. However, in September the city council of Tczew voted unaimously to suspend relations with Lev Hasharon in Israel.
“The decision to suspend partnership cooperation is not aimed at the residents of Lev Hasharon, but is an expression of Tczew’s solidarity with the victims of violence and an appeal to seek peaceful solutions to the dispute,” read its resolution.
"No one has the right to cause children to starve," Poland's foreign minister has told Israel.
"Even when Israel acts in self defense, it is still not exempt from respecting international humanitarian law…[as] the state occupying Gaza and the West Bank" https://t.co/CTGgdxnLaH
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) August 3, 2025
Last month, the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) party submitted a resolution to Poland’s national parliament condemning Israel’s “genocidal actions” in Gaza, as well as the “criminal terrorist attacks by Hamas”. The Left (Lewica) previously submitted a similar resolution. However, neither has yet come up for a vote.
In August, foreign minister Radosław Sikorski accused Israel of using “excessive force” and called on it to “respect international humanitarian law” in its “occupation” of Gaza and the West Bank, saying that “no one has the right to cause children to starve”.
Soon after, Prime Minister Donald Tusk declared that, while “Poland was, is and will be on Israel’s side in its confrontation with Islamic terrorism”, it would “never [be] on the side of politicians whose actions lead to hunger and the death of mothers and children”.
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Stanisław Węsławski/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY 4.0)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
