Activists from the a pro-Palestine group in Mallorca carried out an act of vandalism and protest on Sunday at a hotel in Palmanova, where they threw red ink into the swimming pool, simulating blood, as a show of solidarity with the Palestinian people. The hotel belongs to an Israeli chain.
In a statement released by the group, the activists explain that the action comes after ‘more than 700 days of escalating Zionist genocide against the Palestinian people, rooted in colonialism and serving imperialist interests.’ They also pointed to the hotel chain as ‘an Israeli company vital to the financing and whitewashing of genocide.’
The statement accuses the chain of using its establishments to reinforce colonial control in Palestine and of being part of a ‘propaganda machine that seeks to whitewash genocide,’ citing as examples conferences organised by the Israeli embassy in some of its European hotels and free stays for Israeli soldiers involved in attacks on Palestinian families, including more than 35,000 minors.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Monday his government would increase pressure on Israel by banning Israel-bound ships and aircraft carrying weapons from calling at Spanish ports or entering Spanish airspace. He also said the Spanish government would increase aid to the Palestinian authority and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and would impose an embargo on goods made in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
“We hope that they will serve to add pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government to alleviate some of the suffering that the Palestinian population is enduring,“ Sanchez said in a public address aired on local TV. Spain will also ban anyone who has participated directly in what Sanchez qualified as “genocide” from entering the country.