Tens of thousands fill Spanish streets to support Palestinians

OVIEDO, Spain

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Spanish cities on Sunday to support Palestinians and call for an end to Israeli attacks on civilians.

In Madrid, the government estimates that around 35,000 protesters attended the protests, including various government ministers.

Yolanda Diaz, one of Spain’s deputy prime ministers, joined the march. “Today we are expressing solidarity with the victims of war crimes and calling for an immediate cease-fire,” she told media.

Diaz emphasized that Spain was one of the 120 countries in the United Nations to have voted for a humanitarian truce. Only 14 countries voted against the motion, including the US and Israel.

At the same march in the Spanish capital, Spain’s Social Rights Minister Ione Belarra called for an end to the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians.

Head of the far-left party Podemos, Belarra also criticized European governments, including Spain’s, for being “complicit” in “this planned genocide" and not doing enough to stop it. She is urging countries to break diplomatic ties with Israel and impose sanctions.

In Valencia, around 12,000 people flooded the street with the same goals, chanting slogans like “They are hospitals, not military bases.”

In Granada, around 1,000 people took to the streets, presenting a manifesto that began: “The criminal actions of Hamas deserve our energetic condemnation, but they cannot serve to justify the genocide that Israel is carrying out on the Palestinian people.”

This is the third week that people around Spain have taken to the streets to voice their support for the besieged and bombarded civilians in Gaza.

More than 8,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since Oct. 7, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Sunday, as Israel expanded its ground operations in the area.