Today : Oct 18, 2025
World News
18 October 2025

Barcelona Erupts With Mass Protests For Palestine

Demonstrations, strikes, and direct actions across Spain reflect deepening public outrage over Gaza and position Barcelona as a leading voice in European solidarity.

Barcelona has become a focal point for pro-Palestinian activism in Europe, with a series of mass protests, strikes, and direct actions sweeping the city and Spain at large throughout October 2025. As the war in Gaza enters its third year, the city’s streets, institutions, and even its airports have been transformed by public outrage and solidarity with the Palestinian people. What’s behind this extraordinary surge of activism, and how did Barcelona become the epicenter of Europe’s most vocal pro-Palestinian movement?

The latest wave of protests began in earnest on October 5, 2025. Near midnight, Barcelona Airport’s arrivals hall swelled with around 200 people waving Palestinian flags and holding banners reading “Benvinguts” (“Welcome”). The crowd was there to greet Ada Colau, the city’s former mayor, and Jordi Coronas, a city council member, as they returned from Israeli detention. The two had joined the Global Sumud Flotilla, a humanitarian mission aimed at breaking the blockade of Gaza, which was intercepted by Israeli forces just miles from the Palestinian coast. Both Colau and Coronas described their ordeal as a violation of their fundamental rights, but quickly called for continued resistance. “There will be more flotillas, just like there will be more demonstrations,” Colau told the crowd, according to The Palestine Chronicle. “And, together, we must make sure they are bigger and bigger because the social pressure is working.”

The flotilla’s departure from Barcelona on September 1, 2025, was itself a dramatic event. Thousands gathered at the city’s port to send off renowned activists including Greta Thunberg, Yasemin Acar, and Thiago Avila. Thunberg, speaking before the journey, declared, “When our governments fail, the people step forward.” Barcelona’s commitment to the Palestinian cause has been long-standing, but the interception of the flotilla electrified the city’s activist networks and set off a new round of mass mobilizations.

Within days of the flotilla incident, Barcelona’s schools and universities emptied as students went on strike, joining protesters in the streets. For many, it was their first taste of political action, driven by a sense of kinship with children suffering in Gaza. Demonstrators blocked key roads, set up solidarity camps, and targeted businesses seen as complicit in Israel’s actions. Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)-inspired actions led to the vandalism of shops and corporations perceived to profit from the conflict.

The largest demonstration came on October 4, 2025, when organizers estimated that 300,000 people marched through Barcelona in what has been described as a historic protest. Most wore dark clothing as a sign of mourning, and the city center was awash in Palestinian flags and banners demanding justice. According to The Palestine Chronicle, the protest was the latest in a long tradition of mass mobilization in Barcelona, a city with a storied history of working-class activism and international solidarity.

That history has translated into concrete political action. In early 2023, under Ada Colau’s leadership, Barcelona cut its sister city ties with Tel Aviv—a move later reversed by her successor, Jaume Collboni, but revived after the escalation in Gaza. The Catalan regional government closed its trade office in Tel Aviv in May 2025, and in July, the Catalan Parliament became the first legislative body since 1991 to recognize Zionism as a form of racism, a decision made under intense public pressure.

As the situation in Gaza worsened, the activism spread beyond Barcelona. On October 15, 2025, trade unions and youth organizations across Spain called a nationwide strike and organized rallies in Madrid, Tarragona, Valencia, and other cities. Tens of thousands participated, including approximately 25,000 students at Madrid’s Puerta del Sol. The strikes featured pickets, roadblocks, and even entire enterprises shutting down in solidarity. “Today we’re not only students [going on strike], but also workers,” said Coral Latorre of the Students’ Union, as reported by Peoples Dispatch. “From the first hours of the morning, pickets, roadblocks, rallies in companies and factories, entire enterprises on strike… We said: we’ll block everything, and that’s what we’re doing with this day of general strike.”

Protesters’ demands went beyond an immediate ceasefire. Many criticized European leaders for congratulating US President Donald Trump and Israeli authorities on a recent ceasefire agreement, while continuing to maintain economic and military cooperation with Israel. “The ‘peace’ of the genocidal is not peace,” Latorre insisted. “It is a farce to crown genocide, to turn Palestine into a colony, and to strip the Palestinian people of their right to exist.” Workers’ organizations, such as the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), called for a redistribution of public spending away from defense and militarization towards social needs, highlighting the gap between government policies and the lived realities of workers.

The protests have not always been peaceful. On October 15, violence erupted in Barcelona as approximately 1,000 protesters marched toward the Israeli consulate. According to the BBC, clashes continued into the night, with demonstrators setting bins on fire and smashing the windows of banks and fast food restaurants. Several Starbucks and McDonald’s locations were forced to close after entrances were blockaded and pro-Palestinian graffiti was daubed on the stores. Organizers said these actions were intended to disrupt business and draw public attention to the ongoing crisis in Gaza.

The Spanish government’s stance has further fueled the protests. Unlike many European counterparts, Spain’s leaders, including Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, have openly criticized Israel’s military actions in Gaza. The government has recognized the Palestinian State, supported a total arms embargo on Israel, and called for Israel’s exclusion from international sporting and cultural events. This position enjoys strong public support, reinforcing the sense that Spain—and especially Barcelona—stands apart from the rest of Europe in its approach to the conflict.

Barcelona’s activism is not an isolated phenomenon. The city’s history of mass mobilization stretches back decades, from the million-strong protests against the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 to the massive demonstrations in support of refugees in 2017. As Cèlia Carbó of Prou Complicitat amb Israel put it, “The Palestinian struggle is part of our collective imagination when it comes to envisioning a freer world.” Carbó emphasized that the city’s successes are the result of years of persistent organizing, and that each victory creates a precedent for others to follow. “All of our victories create a precedent, an example which can be copied elsewhere,” she said. “And this is what we want: to start a snowball effect which allows us to move forward together and ensure the world sides with the Palestinian people.”

Spain’s pro-Palestinian movement has also made headlines beyond Barcelona. During this year’s La Vuelta cycling race, a handful of demonstrators blocking the Israel-Premier Tech team in Figueres inspired larger protests across the country. The final stage of the race in Madrid was suspended as around 100,000 people overran the course, a testament to the scale and passion of the movement.

While the future of the conflict remains uncertain, Barcelona’s example illustrates how local activism, political action, and public solidarity can intersect to shape national and even international responses. The city’s streets, once again, have become a stage for history—one where the voices of ordinary people may yet shift the course of events far beyond their borders.