Criticism of Israel
Strikes and demonstrations in Spain against Israel over Gaza
Updated 10/15/2025 – 10:02 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
People stop work and demonstrate against the military operation in the Gaza Strip. Violent riots break out in Barcelona.
Five days after the start of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, tens of thousands of people in Spain took part in a strike called by unions against Israel’s military actions. In Barcelona there were violent riots during a demonstration of around 15,000 people in the evening. Masked people attacked shops and restaurants that they accused of having connections or proximity to Israel, state TV broadcaster RTVE reported. There were also riots in front of the Israeli consulate.
On television it was seen how masked people set fire to large plastic garbage containers and broke the windows of a café and a fast food restaurant. There had already been clashes with the police at Sants train station. Demonstrators there tried to prevent the Hapolel Jerusalem basketball team from leaving the train station, state TV broadcaster RTVE reported. The Israelis were scheduled to play a game without an audience against local club Baxi Manresa. The police used pepper spray and demonstrators threw bottles and other objects.
Several unions had called for protests and strikes to protest against Israel’s military deployment in the coastal strip, which was denounced as genocide. People should stop work for two hours in the morning, midday and evening. Initially, nothing was known about any major impact on public life. There were occasional slight delays in local transport and some TV stations had short broadcast interruptions. There were also rallies in other larger cities such as Madrid, Valencia, Bilbao and Seville.
Spain is one of the EU’s harshest critics of Israel’s military actions in the Gaza Strip. The country has imposed an arms embargo on Israel and issued entry bans on ultra-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The left-wing head of government Pedro Sánchez accuses Israel of genocide in the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza War was triggered by the massacre by the Islamist Hamas and other extremists from the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023 in Israel, with around 1,200 dead and 250 abducted. Israel responded with massive attacks on Hamas in the densely populated area. According to Palestinian information, more than 67,000 people were killed, the majority of them civilians.
