Council in Spain joins BDS

Spain’s third largest city has voted to join the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) movement following Israel’s assault on unarmed Palestinian protesters taking part in the Great March of Return in Gaza.

“We need to act more firmly on a criminal country like Israel,” Iglesias Turrión, leader of the Podemos party, said on RTVE.

According to Haaretz, “last week, a motion promoted by a local fraction of Podemos on the City Council of Valencia, Spain’s third-largest city, was passed declaring a boycott of Israel and Valencia an ‘Israeli apartheid-free zone’.”

More than 120 unarmed Palestinians have been killed as by live fire and tear gas during the Great March of Return protests along the Gaza border fence with Israel. Demonstrators were demanding their right to return to homes their families were forcibly evicted from to make way for the state of Israel, condemning the relocation of the US embassy to occupied Jerusalem and calling for an end to the 11-year sieged on the Strip.

Read: Spain provides €2 million support for Palestinians