Some 2,300 people, as confirmed by the Guàrdia Urbana, have taken to the streets of Barcelona for another weekend to demand an end to the attacks by the Israeli army on the Palestinian population. This Saturday’s protest began in Plaza Universitat and advanced through the city center under the slogan “We stop genocide and apartheid in Palestine from the river to the sea.” At the head of the demonstration a similar message could be read: “We stop the genocide in Palestine. Stop the arms trade with Israel.” The march is behind a group of children carrying a reproduction of Picasso’s Guernica with the colors of the Palestinian flag. The demonstration planned to advance to Plaza de Catalunya, Via Laietana and Plaza de Sant Jaume.
The thousands of protesters have mostly complied with the slogan of wearing black as a sign of mourning for what they consider a massacre of the population of the Gaza Strip a few days before the Christmas holidays. Among the most heard cries, “Gaza, you are not alone” and “Free Palestine from the river to the sea”, which have accompanied a crowd that has displayed Palestinian signs and flags.
In statements to the media before the start of the demonstration, the president of the Palestinian community of Catalonia, Natalia Abu Sharar, thanked the Palestinian people for their support in the various mobilizations and stated that these concentrations help to “raise awareness” among the population that was unaware of it. the Israeli occupation. In addition, she explained that in this Saturday’s call there was a call to wear black as a sign of “mourning” to “remember all the martyrs” who died in Gaza.
Abu Sharar compared the genocide that he claims the Palestinians are suffering with the nakba of 1948 and assured that it is now “worse” because the figures of that time are being exceeded, with up to two million refugees currently.
In turn, the member of the Enough Complicity with Israel Coalition Alys Samson Estapé wanted to highlight the strength of the street demonstrations both in Catalonia and in the State but said that they also serve to point out “the divorce” between the civil society and institutions. According to him, there has been “very little institutional response” and he has denounced that there are “empty words and condemnations of the bombings” but that in the meantime “do not go to the root of the problem, continue the complicity with Israel and do not break relations there.” “.
In fact, he has recriminated the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Meritxell Serret, who stated that, for the moment, the Government has no intention of changing the relations it maintains with Israel.
For his part, the co-president of the Catalan Association of Jews and Palestinians Laurent Cohen insisted on demanding that an embargo be imposed on the arms trade with Israel. “They have to move from words to actions to stop the genocide in Gaza,” he stressed. Along these lines, he has criticized the Spanish Government for contracts with Israeli companies for the maintenance and supply of various weapons.
