A demonstration – in which 50,000 people participated according to the organization and 1,500 according to the Government Delegation – cried out this Saturday afternoon from the streets of the center of Valencia against the “genocide” of the Palestinian people. The protest asked the Government to break “diplomatic, economic and cultural relations” with Israel to end the sale of weapons. “The closet of hope of the Palestinian people is full of words, speeches and resolutions, but empty of facts,” the attendees criticized.
The march was part of the state call promoted by the Solidarity Network against the Occupation of Palestine (RESCOP) to demand that the Government and the parties that support it “pressure and take immediate and proactive measures” for “the defense and protection of the human rights” in Palestine, “if they do not want to become necessary accomplices of the most damaging chapter in our recent history.
Thus, he urged the central Executive to adopt “concrete and effective” measures against the “genocide” in the Gaza Strip and “occupation, apartheid and colonialism” in Palestine. “The cruelty of these latest attacks is unprecedented,” denounced the organization, which has warned that in the West Bank and Jerusalem “the process of ethnic cleansing is accelerating,” with “massive arrests, offensives, murders and attacks” with the aim to “expel the native population from their land.”
For all these reasons, he demanded that the Government lead an “immediate and permanent” ceasefire, put an end to the purchase and sale of weapons and military and security technology with Israel, and break diplomatic, institutional, economic, sports and cultural relations with Israel and to “end the persecution and criminalization of solidarity” with Palestine.
In the city of València, the march – which had the support of associations such as the Palestinian Community or the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions País València (BDS) association – started around 5:30 p.m. from Xàtiva Street and continued along Colón Street. In addition to València, mobilizations were also held in 13 other towns in the Valencian Community such as Alicante, Alcoi, Borriol, Castelló de la Plana, Elx, Gandia, Morella, Ontinyent, Villena, Vinaròs, Torrevieja and Xàtiva.
In the capital, the thousands of protesters who supported the call carried signs with messages such as ‘Enough of genocides, right to life and freedom’, ‘Save Gaza’ or ‘From the river to the sea Palestine will win’, chanting slogans such as ” The stolen lands will be recovered”, “It is not religion, it is humanity” or “Gaza holds on, the earth rises” and they showed Palestinian flags, one of them giant and hand-painted.
BDS País Valencià member Jorge Ramos Tolosa, in statements to the media, lamented that the “closet of hope of the Palestinian people is full of words, speeches and resolutions, but it is empty of facts.” “We need facts,” he maintained, and highlighted that the demands of the Palestinian people focus on “the cessation of collaboration with the genocidal regime of Israel.”
“That is, we stop buying and selling weapons, diplomatic, economic and cultural relations,” he insisted, while highlighting that this Saturday’s march is “the largest mobilization in the history of Valencia and the Spanish State in support of Palestine.” .
He explained that more than 100 Spanish cities have joined the mobilizations this weekend to demand the “end of the sale of weapons and all relations with Israel.”
For his part, the spokesman for the Palestinian Community in Valencia, Adel Yousef, claimed that “people with powers do not want to stop the war” and, therefore, “the street is mobilizing and shouting enough is enough.” “If we don’t go out, no one will move because they live in comfort,” he added.
“They are people like us and more than 800,000 are on the border without electricity, water or life, just diseases,” Yousef denounced, while questioning “where is humanity and human rights.”
“There are no words left, only the pain of the people who have left their homes, their lands or who have lost their children, their husband or the rest of their family,” he said, going on to warn that the Palestinians “cannot more and they are required to go into the desert, but we are no longer in the time of Moses.
Finally, the Compromís councilor in the Valencia City Council and former mayor of the city, Joan Ribó, showed his solidarity with the Palestinian people and for the “intolerable” situation suffered by Gaza and the West Bank. “It is something unbearable and there is no right,” he said, in statements to Europa Press.
Thus, he defended that the Palestinians “are people like all people and we have to respect them,” while showing his rejection of seeing “how one war is treated and how another is treated.” “All people have the same rights and the same possibilities, and I am here for that,” he added.
Finally, Ribó insisted on the recognition of the Palestinian State, “so that there are two states, one Israeli and the other Palestinian”, a situation that he sees as “viable” because, as he stressed, “it is something that even the high representative demands.” of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and vice-president of the European Commission – Josep Borrell”.
