On 21 October, solidarity concentrations with Palestine were held in many towns and cities in the Basque Country. Throughout the afternoon, thousands of people joined the calls organized by the Gernika-Palestine platform.
At noon, the unions and members of the educational community held concentrations in Bilbao, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Donostia-San Sebastián, Pamplona/Iruña and Tudela (Navarra). In the afternoon, the mobilizations were held in front of the municipalities of 178 localities throughout the territory. In it, they called for the breakdown of all complicity with Israel and stressed the need for “diplomatic channels” to resolve the conflict.
The popular initiative, convened by the Gernika-Palestine platform, has taken many places in the Basque Country: 63 villages in Bizkaia, 41 in Gipuzkoa, 61 in Navarra, 12 in Álava and one in Lapurdi. Within a year, they have denounced that the Israeli army has killed at least 43,000 Palestinians and destroyed 70 per cent of the infrastructure in Gaza. The poem written by Leire Vargas has been read in many villages and has underlined the need for an immediate response to the genocide: “Will we learn? Why haven't we learned already? It’s always too late and that’s why this is the time.”