For the umpteenth time, civil society has returned to the streets to massively show its support to the Palestinian people, victim of a genocide that will turn two days in three days. Convened in the capital by the Solidarity Network against the Occupation of Palestine (Rescop), the Collective End to the Trade of Weapons with Israel, the Madrid Assembly with Palestine and the Hispanic-Palestinian Association of Jerusalem, the tens of thousands of protesters in Madrid, 100,000 according to the delegation of the Government and 400,000 according to the organizers, they have not stopped chanting songs such as “Netanyahu “It's not a war, it's a genocide.”
The protest takes place just the day that the Israeli media have advanced that Israel will stop their offensive on Gaza after Hamas's response to negotiate the future of Palestine in exchange for the liberation of Israeli hostages. In Palestine, at least 66,000 people have died murdered since October 7, 2023.
The mobilization has been repeated in almost 100 municipalities throughout Spain under the same motto: “Alto the genocide in Palestine. Long live the struggle of the Palestinian people!” Just a few minutes before 6:00 p.m., when the march has begun, Laura Ferre explained to elDiario.es that “it is inexplicable that after seven decades of Zionist colonialism and an occupation recognized as such by the UN, as well as a genocide according to international organizations, our government continues to trade with Israeli military material.”
Ferre is the spokeswoman for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) to Israel and thus argues one of the claims of the protest: “To stop Israel what you have to do is comply with the law. The International Criminal Court already said in 2024 that you have to take all the necessary measures to stop the genocide. We need Spain to break any type of relationship, starting with diplomats.”
In his opinion, the Royal Decree Law that will soon approve the Council of Ministers on the embargo of Arms to Israel is not sufficient, and it calls him as “strainer embargo”. Yes, the norms that restrict the arms trade, “especially within a State that is a member of NATO”, point, but at the same time affect that “there are some clauses that would have to disappear, such as the non -annulment of the contracts already signed and the authorization of imports or exports in case of national interest,” he exemplifies.
The street presses the government
Likewise, Ferre has stressed that civil society has the ability to perceive that a genocide is an intolerable situation, so he presses governments, paraphrasing their terms. “If Spain only moves with mobilization in the streets, here we will continue, and more and more.” In this sense, he said that “as peoples of the world we are up to what happens, it is the world -led worldwide hegemony. You just have to look back. “During Nazism it was thought that it would be impossible to overcome it, and during the liberation of Algeria it cost to think that this state would be free. History does not happen in the short term, and this must be thought of it,” said the BDS spokeswoman.
Such has been the influx of people this afternoon in the center of Madrid who were still people in Atocha while the head of the demonstration entered Gran Vía to travel the last meters before completing in Callao. “They were hospitals, not military bases” and “the state of Israel will fall” have been some of the chants repeated during the march, to which Carmen Almeros has decided to go with her little daughter: “Genocide is the word of fashion, but Palestine has been suffering the siege and occupation for decades,” he said.
This Madrid, at the height of Cibeles, did not stop looking at his daughter when she has reported that “it seems that we want to protect them from hard realities, when many other occasions are exposed to much more toxic messages, so it is also important to also involve them against injustices, always taking care of the images they see.”
Reminders for Ayuso and Almeida
Just a few meters from her was Ana Bajo and her sister Cristina. The first in walker and the second in a wheelchair, have not hesitated to go to the protest: “What happens in Gaza is possible due to the impunity of the entire world, which allows this atrocity. We should have reacted much more and long before,” Ana said at 66.
A marriage arrived from Valladolid expressly to participate in the protest has added that “there are few people on the street, taking into account everything that is happening.” The couple of the couple has also referred to the support that Ayuso and Almeida have given to Israel: “I wonder if in silence, in their solitude, they think and really believe the statements they say.”
While the Palestinian flags created a curious colored mejunje with the rojigualdas present in the lampposts of the Gran Vía to announce on October 12, José Maroto has been surprised by all the people who have come to the demonstration. This 65 -year -old Madrid has asserted that “the agreement proposed by Trump will not be respected by Israel, as any of the previous ones has respected.”
A few meters later, Andrea Sanguino's full family has been, who has criticized the position defended by the regional president: “The first thing she would have to do is call things by her name, and say that what happens in Palestine is a genocide.” According to this 32 -year -old Madrid teacher, “Ayuso's statements are based on their economic interests with genocide”, the same for which Spain will not break diplomatic relations with Israel, in their opinion.
In addition, he also stressed that “it seems that there are two types of people, because when we receive the Ukrainian people, he was received with open arms.” Finally, Sanguino has influenced “the pressure that the regional government is putting in educational centers to try to prevent us from educating something minimal, such as human rights.” A few minutes later, a couple of activists have written “accomplices” and “Free Palestine” in the showcase of a Starbucks store.
Against the complicit states of the Trump Plan
Around 8:00 p.m., when the last rays of sun had already fallen behind the buildings of the Gran Vía Madrid, the conveners have read a speech. “For decades the Zionist regime has tried to bleach its image by developing economic and political propaganda strategies. At this time there is no one who does not know about the colonial violence that Israel is imposing throughout Palestine,” he began.
The final statement has collected some criticism of the political estate: “political discourse also includes a double standard. On the one hand they condemn the massacre, but on the other they equate colonizer and colonized, accusing of terrorists, who for international legitimacy have the right to defend themselves.” They have also criticized that “the accomplices, including Spain”, have “decided to assume the legalization of the genocide of the Palestinian people with the support of the so-called Trump-Nananyahu Plan, which denies the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people.”
Despite them, the conveners have affirmed that “Israel is more cultural, economically and diplomatically than ever, because no one believes in those lies.” In addition, “his propaganda, however specialized he is, cannot erase from collective memory the horror, sadness and despair that he has sown in the hearts of each of the people aware in this world.”
Finally, they have read up to ten demands towards the government led by Pedro Sánchez, among which are immediate entry and without restrictions on humanitarian aid; the approval of the Royal Decree on Armament Commerce with amendments that guarantee an integral embargo; the total breakdown of any relationship with Israel, support for international judgments against Israel; The liberation of Palestinian prisoners and prisoners and an “unequivocal support for the resistance of the Palestinian people and their legitimate right to self -defense against occupation, colonization, apartheid, ethnic cleaning and genocide, recognized in international law,” they have concluded.
Demonstrations throughout the territory
Tens of thousands of people have come, for the third consecutive day, to the demonstration called in Barcelona to demand the end of the genocide in Gaza and the release of the flotilla.
If the demonstration on Thursday, convened a few hours after confirming that the more than 200 crew members had been arrested by Israel, it was already massive, it has surpassed it. People who have been going out three days in a row have gathered. Others who are the first time they have had time to do it. But everyone has shared the “fed up” for the situation. The Urban Guard has estimated at 70,000 attendees, which the organizers raise up to 300,000 people.
Barcelona has been the first city, next to Seville, which has gone out on a day in which more than 15 mobilizations are expected around Spain, most of them summoned in the afternoon. “The power and the Popular Force have forced the institutions to start taking measures,” says the statement sent by the Catalan organizers. But those measures, they say, are “still insufficient.”
Thousands of people have also demonstrated this Saturday in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in support of the Palestinian people and to claim the end of Israel's genocide against the Gazati population.
“Gaza's children are not a threat” and “Gaza, endures, the world rises,” the protesters have chanted. The march has begun at eleven in the morning from the San Telmo Park in the capital and has toured León and Castillo Street until reaching the Plaza de la Feria, where the headquarters of the Delegation of the Government of Spain in the Canary Islands are located, with banners that accused the United States and the European Union of “sponsoring Israel Killer” or asked the “dear world” where “its humanity is”.
“The heroic struggle of the Palestinian people demands a solidarity without limits of all the peoples of the world,” says the manifesto read in the Plaza de la Feria by Nor El Bakkouri and Daniel González Expósito. “Israel has destroyed more than 92% of homes in the Gaza Strip, which not only remains the largest open -pit jail on the planet, but has become an extermination field.”
Already this afternoon, in Valencia, a demonstration has traveled the center of the city, from the Plaza de Toros to the Plaza de América, to also request the “end of the genocide in Palestine”, an “integral” embargo of arms and the “end of relations with Israel”, as well as the liberation of all people who embarked on the flotilla to Gaza “kidnapped”: “It is a legal obligation.” More than 10,000 people have participated in the march, according to the Government Delegation.
Likewise, very important concentrations have been given in other cities such as Pamplona, Vigo, Sevilla, Valladolid, which has joined more than 5,000 people, Murcia, where the main artery of the capital of the Safe has been filled with people to such an extent that the tail of the march was not distinguished, or Córdoba, where more than 2,000 people have gathered.