On May 22, 2024, the air outside Berlin’s Humboldt University was thick with tension. Over a hundred people had peacefully gathered at Universitätsstraße in solidarity with a group of students. The students had occupied the nearby Institute for Social Sciences and renamed it Jabalia Institute after one of the largest refugee camps in Gaza—known as a historic stronghold of resistance. Their voices rose together in steady, rhythmic chants, demanding peace and justice for people facing genocide and violence in Palestine and Lebanon.

During this year’s annual Carnival festival in Trinidad and Tobago’s capital city of Port of Spain, a Moko Jumbi – a traditional stilt walker and spirit dancer – paraded the streets representing Palestine and demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. In Trinbagonian culture, the Moko Jumbie represents a spirit walking over and protecting the souls of all those who were massacred and lost during the transatlantic slave trade. This year, its mission was extended to solidarity with the Palestinian people.

My family’s journey through war-ravaged Gaza started last October, the very day after our Gaza City home was bombed — with us inside — killing my oldest cousin, Mohammed. We knew we had to move. Leaflets fell from the sky, urging us to flee southwest. So began a journey that took us through the Jabaliya refugee camp, Deir Al-Balah, Khan Younis, Al-Nusirat, Al-Qarara, and Rafah. Each stop marked a milestone in a trip punctuated by evacuation orders and displacements. I’ve lost count of the number of times we were told to move, but it’s at least a dozen.

John Collins and Derek Sherrange report from Madrid, Spain, where students are turning up the heat on universities that remain complicit in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

To learn more about the first encampment in Valencia, I reached out to Dr. Jorge Ramos Tolosa, who teaches contemporary history at UV. In addition to his scholarship and teaching, he is a longtime activist with BDS Valencia and the Red Solidaria contra la Ocupación de Palestina (RESCOP), a network of Spanish organizations working in solidarity with Palestine.

From June 6-9, elections for the European Parliament, the only genuinely democratic institution in the community’s institutional framework - its members are directly chosen by the citizenry, whereas the rest are intergovernmental in nature - will be held. It is a good moment to think about the challenges facing the European Union (EU) and, I would say, the entire planet.

'We have two options now: dying or dying.'

This was a text message that Salahaldin (Salah) Eleyan received from his brother from Northern Gaza, Palestine.

On an ordinary Wednesday morning in the calm, well-to-do Chamberi district of Madrid, a group of about 150 Spaniards stood on the street corner opposite a large cultural center, with riot police watching on intently, and chanted:

“Murderers! Murderers! Shame! Shame!”

On March 3, more than 100 people showed up in Madrid, Spain, to hear a first-hand report from Manal Tamimi, a Palestinian activist whose family has been at the center of resistance efforts in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. In a talk that was both moving and sobering, Tamimi spoke passionately about the ongoing struggle of West Bank Palestinians at a time when the Israeli state’s machinery of violence appears to be more emboldened than ever thanks to the active and passive support of governments the world over.

On December 29, 2023, South Africa brought a case against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, arguing that Israel was committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza. On January 11-12, 2024, the ICJ held public hearings on South Africa’s request for provisional measures of protection for the people of Gaza and eventually ruled that Israel was responsible for taking all necessary measures to prevent “acts of genocide” in Gaza. The ongoing ICJ case has been the subject of significant debate. To explore the issue further, I reached out to Dr. Somdeep Sen, a frequent Weave News contributor and a professor at Roskilde University.

How can international governments justify continuing to maintain arms sales to and from Israel at a time when Israel is actively carrying out a genocide in Gaza? And what will it take in order to change this intolerable reality? These were the central questions animating a panel discussion held recently in Spain, where grassroots pressure for an arms embargo on Israel continues to grow.

On Feb. 9, 2024, renowned anthropologist Dr. Ghassan Hage released a public statement on the decision of the Max Planck Institute to sever its relationship with him because of his public statements regarding Israeli violence against Palestinians. We are republishing this statement here with Dr. Hage’s permission.

I woke up this morning in Malaga with the knowledge that today was an important day in Spain: a day of nationwide demonstrations calling for an end to Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. At a time when European leaders continue to fail to meet their basic moral obligations vis-a-vis the Palestinian people, more than 70 Spanish cities from Alacant and Albacete to Zamora and Zaragoza were scheduled to host actions under the common banner of stopping the genocide, ending arms sales to Israel, and cutting off diplomatic relations with the apartheid state.

On Thursday, November 16, I attended a “huelga estudantil” (student strike) held in Madrid, Spain, in support of Palestine. I was amazed to look out at the crowd and see such a diversity of young faces ranging from middle school students to university-age young adults. It was a truly diverse coalition of young people who were all there for the same reason: to condemn the current Israeli assault on Gaza and call for an end to the Israeli occupation. The fact that such a large group of students left their classrooms vacant to take to the streets in support of Palestine gave a strong sense that Gen Z is fiercely challenging the normalization of Israeli oppression.

s part of my commitment to bringing justice-oriented voices from Spain to a broader audience, especially in the context of the ongoing struggle for justice in Palestine, I am providing this English translation of remarks made by Ione Belarra, leader of the leftist Podemos party and Minister of Social Rights in the Spanish government between 2021 and 2023. Belarra spoke at a Podemos-organized event at the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid marking 76 years since the beginning of the Palestinian Nakba.

When Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke with international media on October 30, he ostensibly sought to clarify Israel's objectives in its ongoing military assault in Gaza. In doing so, he revealed yet again how language grounded in colonial denial serves to clear the way for the most extreme, even genocidal forms of violence. He also revealed, however, that Israel's brutal bombardment of Gaza may be providing an opening for us to revive a different, more liberating kind of language, one that survives the propagandistic weapons of colonial discourse as embers in the rubble of generational trauma.

It’s been more than a month since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. In that month, I carried on with my day-to-day activities albeit with a heavy heart for the victims of the war. The officials and military combatants are not at the center of my thoughts and worries – the civilians are. Before the attacks, they bore the brunt of the war and terror in the region, and for decades after they will, too.

As recently as a few years ago, it would have been very unusual to see an article in a major US publication openly trying to refute what much of the world knows: that Israel’s project in Palestine is a settler colonial project. The standard practice was simply to ignore the colonization issue. Yet in recent months, we are seeing more and more pieces seeking to debunk the “decolonization narrative,” all the more so since Israel began its genocidal assault on Gaza after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. This is a welcome sign that the colonizers are losing control of the narrative.

As part of my commitment to bringing justice-oriented voices from Spain to a broader audience, especially in the context of the ongoing struggle for justice in Palestine, I am providing this English translation of remarks made by Spanish activist and Eurodeputy Miguel Urbán at an October 20, 2023 public event in Madrid held in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

As part of my commitment to bringing justice-oriented voices from Spain to a broader audience, especially in the context of the ongoing struggle for justice in Palestine, I am providing this English translation of remarks made by journalist Olga Rodriguez at an October 20, 2023 public event held in solidarity with the Palestinian people.