When Giorgia Meloni came to power in 2022, she cast herself as a staunch ally of Israel. But a crescendo of domestic opposition to the war in Gaza culminated this week in nationwide strikes that paralyzed key infrastructure — and a series of unexpected moves by the Italian prime minister.

After deserting the United Nations in New York, where France and other countries on Monday recognized a Palestinian state as part of an effort to forge lasting peace — over opposition from Israel and the U.S. — Meloni vowed to present a motion to her country’s Parliament to follow suit.

“Recognizing Palestine in the absence of a state that has the requirements needed for sovereignty doesn’t solve the problem,” Meloni told reporters on Tuesday. But, she added, “if the recognition of Palestine can be an effective instrument in exerting political pressure, fine, I understand that.”

Italian recognition comes with a caveat: Hamas must release all the remaining hostages it took during its deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, and the group — considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., U.K. and European Union — must agree not to be part of any future Palestinian administration. Hamas has not shown itself fully prepared to do either.

With a slew of elections starting on Sunday with regional polls and ending in 2027 in a general ballot, Meloni is likely worried that Israel’s retaliatory war is becoming an electoral weapon for the opposition, according to Giovanni Orsina, head of the politics department at Luiss university in Rome.

“Italian public opinion is indignant about Gaza in a rather transversal way,” he said. “Since she’s in electoral mode and will remain in it until 2027, she’s attempting to disarm her opponents without disowning who she is.”

Three days after Italians marched in Rome and key cities in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza — where Israel’s campaign against Hamas has killed at least 65,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry — Italy’s ministry of defense on Thursday said it had dispatched two military frigates to protect the Global Freedom Flotilla. Spain also sent a ship.

The flotilla said it had come under attack in international waters on its way to deliver aid to Gaza, where Israel is enforcing a naval blockade. The Italian government, while insisting it would not engage with Israeli warships, said it was seeking to protect its citizens on board — including, crucially, some opposition lawmakers. Still, Meloni called the flotilla’s efforts “gratuitous, dangerous and irresponsible.”

A survey by Izi for La7, published this week, showed that around 88% of Italians say they are in favor of recognizing Palestinian statehood. That’s up from October last year, when a different survey, carried out by Ipsos for think tank Ispi, found a combined 54% of people were in favor.

The change in mood music has been so pervasive that Antonella Clerici, the host of a popular daytime cooking show on Rai 1, a channel administered by the government, said Israel’s conduct in Gaza “objectively” amounted to “a massacre,” and that remaining on the sidelines is tantamount to losing “one’s humanity.” She was quoting Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, who at one point this year was seen as a potential contender to the late Pope Francis.

Successive Italian governments have also trod a careful line — supporting Palestinians and Israel — because “there are significant interests at stake, stability in the Mediterranean, relations with the Arab world,” said Riccardo Fabiani, an analyst at Crisis Group.

But for Meloni, he added, it’s an “evolution that would’ve been unthinkable just some months ago.”

(Jorge Valero contributed to this report.)

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