Tens of thousands of people marched through Barcelona on Saturday in support of Palestinians and demanding an end to arms trade with Israel, one of a series of protests planned across Spain.
Marching behind a huge red banner reading: “Stop the genocide in Palestine. End the arms trade with Israel”, the demonstrators — who police said numbered 70,000 — marched peacefully through the city centre.
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They chanting slogans including “Boycott Israel” and “Free Palestine”.
“Israel’s policy has been wrong for many years and we have to take to the streets,” Marta Carranza, a 65-year-old pensioner demonstrating with a Palestinian flag on her back, told AFP.
“On Thursday, many people came out when the flotilla was intercepted and we expected that today would be serious,” she added.
She was referring to the Global Sumud Flotilla of around 45 vessels seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Many of the vessels — which were heading for the occupied Palestinian territory, where the United Nations says famine has taken hold — departed from Barcelona in early September.
Around 50 Spaniards on the flotilla have been detained by Israel, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said told public television in an interview aired on Saturday.
The flotilla organisers say Israel’s actions were “illegal” since they intercepted the vessels while they were traversing international waters.
Among the crowd filling the streets of Barcelona was Jordi Bas, a 40-year-old primary school teacher waving a Palestinian flag.
– ‘People beginning to wake up’ –
“It was predictable that many people would turn out today,” he said. “People are beginning to wake up a bit.”
“It’s the only thing that can give them (Palestinians) a little encouragement, to see that the whole world is mobilising in solidarity with them,” he added.
More marches were planned for Saturday afternoon in various Spanish cities, including Madrid.
On September 14, around 100,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators forced the halt of the final stage of the Vuelta a España cycling race in the Spanish capital, where an Israeli team was competing.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Israel should be barred from international sport over the Gaza war, just as Russia was penalised over its invasion of Ukraine.
In Europe, Spain is one of the fiercest critics of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, which followed the October 7, 2023, attack in Israel by fighters from Palestinian group Hamas.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive on the Gaza Strip has killed at least 66,288 Palestinians, also mostly civilians, according to health ministry figures in the occupied territory that the United Nations considers reliable.
In September, Spain said it would ban imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which have been described by UN rights chief Volker Turk as a war crime.
AFP