2023-10-29 19:18:00
Some 35,000 people, including a minister, demonstrated in Madrid on Sunday, according to the Spanish authorities, in favor of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and in support of the Palestinians, on the 23rd day of the conflict .
Shouting “Freedom for Palestine”, waving Palestinian flags and banners, the crowd walked the streets of the Spanish capital. This is one of the largest pro-Palestinian gatherings in Spain since the start of the conflict on October 7.
“Everyone is demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza,” said Labor Minister Yolanda Diaz, leader of the radical left Sumar party.
The demonstration took place as the Israeli army has intensified its air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip since Friday.
“I am very worried about my family because it has been almost two days since I have been able to speak to them, two days since I received any message from them,” Nisrin Mashal, a teacher, told AFPTV. aged 45, explaining that she has family in Gaza and the West Bank.
“We share the suffering of the Palestinian people from a distance,” said Emilio Gonzalez, a 50-year-old IT consultant, adding he hopes the Palestinians get “their own state.”
In Valencia, a large port city in eastern Spain, another pro-Palestinian demonstration brought together several thousand people.
Elsewhere in Greece, 5,000 people demonstrated peacefully on Sunday in Athens, demanding to “end the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza”, according to the Greek police.
On Saturday, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in support of the Palestinians in London, France and New York.
The war between Israel and Hamas, which entered its 23rd day on Sunday, was triggered by the unprecedented attack of the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7 on Israeli soil from the Gaza Strip. Since then, more than 1,400 people have been killed, the majority civilians who were shot, burned alive or died of mutilation on the first day of the attack, and 230 people have been taken hostage, according to the Israeli authorities.
In retaliation, the Israeli army relentlessly bombs the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas since 2007, and besieges this cramped Palestinian territory where some 2.4 million Palestinians are crowded together. For several days, it has also been carrying out land operations there. Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, claims that more than 8,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed in Israeli bombings.
10/29/2023 18:17:26 – Madrid (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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