For a few hours, Ramallah, the capital of occupied West Bank, wanted to believe that the world could be reduced to a giant screen, a ball and a World Cup final. In the Palestinian city, red shirts filled the squares and vendors were doing the last business of the night: the last Spanish flags were running out as the time of the match approached. Dozens of Palestinians had gathered at different points to watch the final between Spain and Argentina. One of the main spaces was a venue on the outskirts of the center: a vacant lot converted for a few days into a small World Cup party, with food stalls, colored lights, music from the speakers, merchandise, and entire families ready to live a night they wanted to be different.“Can I borrow the flag? I want a photo,” asked Amal, a young Palestinian woman. “Spain has made us feel like we are not alone, that's why we support la roja”. For many Palestinians, Spain represents not just a football team, but, above all, a political symbol. The recognition of the Palestinian state by the Spanish government in 2024 and its critical stance on the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu's Israeli government have made Spain one of the countries viewed with the most sympathy by a significant portion of Palestinian society, in Gaza and the West Bank.In the venue, those who supported Argentina were a minority. Since the arrival of the far-right leader Javier Milei to the presidency, Buenos Aires has strengthened its proximity to Israel. Milei's relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is close, to the point that Netanyahu himself wished Argentina victory before the final. “I honestly don't understand how they can go with them,” commented Khalil, a father of a family, pointing to one of the few young fans of the albiceleste. “One team represents one thing and the other represents another.”A touch of normality

When Spain scored, the venue erupted. Shouts, hugs, jumps on chairs. “Long live Spain!”, could be heard from the crowd. People who didn't know each other congratulated each other as if they shared the same history and, for a few moments, football granted something that reality rarely offers: a feeling of euphoria and normality.But the joy was short-lived. A few minutes later, the organizers stopped the broadcast. One of them came out in front of the audience and announced that two Palestinians had been murdered in an attack by settlers in a nearby area. “Let’s have a minute of silence and when the game ends we will turn off the screen,” he announced. The news changed the atmosphere instantly. The same people who a few minutes earlier were jumping and shouting fell silent.According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the attack occurred in Deir Jarir, a town northeast of Ramallah, where residents reported the entry of settlers with the aim of seizing the livestock of Palestinian shepherds. In the attack, Ahmad Adel Abu Mukho, 26, and Odeh Abdul Rahim Farakhneh, 53, were killed and three other people were injured.The death of another young man in an attack prior to the final, during the World Cup, was also confirmed: Fadi Hamdallah Al-Nassan, a 17-year-old Palestinian footballer from the Al-Mughayyir club and a member of the Palestinian youth team, died after being shot during an attack by settlers in his town.The same day, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Religious Affairs, settlers set fire to two houses and a mosque south of Hebron, and near Nablus, four Palestinians were injured in another attack, according to local sources.Record of colonial violence

In recent years, Palestinian, Israeli, and international organizations have documented an increase in settler attacks against the Palestinian population in the West Bank: physical assaults, arson of homes and vehicles, destruction of property, attacks against farmers, and displacement of entire communities.According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in what we have of 2026 settler violence has reached record levels. The agency has documented more than 1,200 incidents with victims or material damage in more than 240 Palestinian communities, an average of about six incidents per day. Up to sixteen Palestinian children have been killed and 187 have been injured in incidents related to Israeli forces or settlers.Organizations like Amnesty International denounce that these incidents often occur under the gaze of the Israeli forces, while the Israeli authorities deny this and defend that they intervene and investigate those responsible when necessary.In Ramallah, the night that had begun as a promise of collective joy ended with the screen off, some shouts of celebration, and most people leaving in almost silence. For a while, football had offered a respite, but reality imposed itself again. In Palestine, the World Cup final ended before the match.

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Lawyer Khaled Quzmar(1964) has been working for almost four decades to defend the rights of the Palestinian population. Executive Director of the Palestinian Centre for Child Rights (PCCR), a few days ago he visited Barcelona at the invitation of the NGO Mundubat to denounce the impact of the occupation and genocide on children in Gaza and the West Bank. He spoke to ARA before meeting with representatives of the Parliament and travelling to Madrid to meet with the Minister of Youth and Children, Sira Rego.Since October 7, 2023, more than 20,000 Palestinian minors have been killed in Gaza, 44,000 have been injured, and 58,000 have been orphaned, according to UN data.

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Half of the Democratic congresspeople in the United States voted on Thursday to end aid to Israel. Previously, sixty had boycotted Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the Capitol in Washington in 2024, an action that was supported by Democrat Ro Khanna. Khanna is, in fact, one of the most critical US politicians regarding Israeli policies in the occupied territories and has often denounced the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu's government towards Palestinians.

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The violence of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank gives no respite to Basel Adra (At-Tuwani, 1996), not even during a brief stay in Madrid. On the same day he is participating in the inauguration of an international summit on the cultural reconstruction of Palestine, co-organized by the Spanish and Palestinian Ministries of Culture, the multi-award-winning director of the documentary No other land wakes up to the news of a "brutal attack" by Israeli settlers on a village adjacent to his own. Before speaking to ARA in a hotel in the center of the Spanish capital, Adra contemplates on his mobile phone images he has received from injured neighbors. "In March, settlers already shot at two brothers from this same family. One of them, 28 years old, was murdered, and the other has been left paralyzed," he explains. This is the daily reality in Masafer Yatta, a cluster of small villages in the southern West Bank that has been fighting for years against Israel's plans to eliminate it. The story of resistance of this Palestinian community became famous following Adra's film, winner of an Oscar in 2025, which has also turned him into an international voice for the Palestinian cause. "The documentary had a great impact worldwide, but it is very difficult for us because on the ground the situation keeps getting worse," he reflects, visibly tired both of this role, which so far has not provided solutions for his people, and of the "inhumane" journey required to leave the territory occupied by Israel and to live under the constant harassment of settlers and the Israeli army.

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For three days, Madrid has become an exhibitor of Palestinian culture. The Reina Sofia, Thyssen, and Prado museums, along with the Círculo de Bellas Artes, have hosted round tables, recitals, and dance performances open to the public, as well as a ministerial conference of some thirty international delegations convened by the Spanish and Palestinian Ministries of Culture to discuss the cultural reconstruction of a Palestine devastated by the genocide and occupation perpetrated by Israel. The political outcome of the summit has been a final declaration calling for the creation of a "pact for the resilience of Palestinian culture," without concrete commitments yet being outlined, and expressing "deep concern" about the current situation.

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The European Union remains deadlocked on sanctions against illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. It is one of the pressure measures that has been on the table of the EU Foreign Affairs Council for the longest time and is gaining increasing support among member states. In fact, as the head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, explained at a press conference, a "majority" of European Foreign Ministers have expressed their support for prohibiting trade with the occupied territories of the West Bank at this Monday's meeting in Brussels, but she did not announce any legal proposal or forecast for its realization.

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The National High Court has admitted two lawsuits against two high-ranking Israeli military officials for alleged crimes of illegal detention in the assault on the Global Sumud Flotilla last October. The civil mission was intercepted in international waters by the Israeli military when it was carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Contrary to the criteria of the Public Prosecutor's Office, magistrate Francisco de Jorge, head of Central Court of Instruction Number 1, has admitted the lawsuits filed by the Communist Party of Spain, United Left Federal and other individuals against Eyal Zamir, head of the Armed Forces, and Ram Rothberg, commander of the Naval Forces.

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"Any genocide also implies a cultural genocide". With this premise in mind, Madrid will host a summit next week focused on the "cultural reconstruction" of Palestine. Thirty ministerial delegations and organizations such as UNESCO and the Arab League will meet on July 15 and 16 in the Spanish capital to address the consequences of the "attempted destruction" perpetrated by Israel and will seek formulas to contribute to the survival of the heritage, cultural institutions, and Palestinian artists threatened by the conflict. The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, host and promoter of this ministerial conference, along with Palestinian authorities, has emphasized that the objective is to "create an international alliance" that will launch "concrete instruments", both "political" and "financial", "to support Palestinian culture", following the model created for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

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Karim Kattan (Jerusalem, 1989) is a Palestinian writer, doctor in comparative literature from Paris University, who explores through poetic fiction exile, memory, and violence, but also love and eroticism. He has lived in France since he was 18, but his family remains in Palestine. In his acclaimed debut novel, Le palais de deux collines (2021; The Palace of Two Hills in the Spanish edition published by Deleste),there is the return of an exile to his village and to the family palace full of ghosts and stories of a past that seems unreal. In L'Éden à l'aube (2024; Eden at Dawn in the Txalaparta edition) he narrates a story of love and desire between two men traveling under a hurricane wind that buries Palestine under the sand. His third novel, to be published in France in September, is even more apocalyptic.

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Mariam Barghouti (Atlanta, 1993) is a Palestinian journalist and researcher born in the United States who has become a reference for her articles from occupied West Bank in media such as The Guardian, the BBC, Al-Jazeeraand Mondoweiss. This year she is the international resident of the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB).

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Ilan Pappé (Haifa, 1954) is one of the critical voices of Zionism worldwide. A member of the so-called new generation of Israeli historians, who debunked the foundational narrative of the State of Israel, he has visited Barcelona to participate in the Fira Literal.

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The 18 Catalan activists who were part of the Global Sumud Flotilla landed this midday at El Prat airport from Istanbul, after having spent five days detained by Israeli authorities. With banners of "Welcome home" and shouts of "Long live, long live Palestine," nearly two hundred people awaited them in the Terminal 2 hall, and the reception left emotional images of reunion with their families. Dressed in gray Israeli prison tracksuits, flip-flops, and a Palestinian scarf, the activists denounced the mistreatment they suffered and demanded action from Western governments: "We are risking our lives because governments are silent and complicit," assured Ariadna Masmitjà, a teacher linked to the IAC union, who also asked the European Union to break relations with Israel.

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The Israeli army has intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla for the second time, the international civilian initiative that denounces the blockade of the Gaza Strip. Shortly after ten in the morning this Monday, soldiers on board speedboats stormed about thirty humanitarian ships when they were about 250 miles from the coast of Gaza, in international waters. This is an area within the zone where Cyprus is responsible for rescuing any vessel in distress and Israel has no jurisdiction there. The solidarity initiative involves 54 boats with 460 activists, from 44 different nationalities, including about twenty Catalans, and specialized teams in medicine and reconstruction.

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He who takes a flag takes a burden. Of all symbols, the colored cloths representing countries are the most epic. And although he is only 18 years old, we will agree that Lamine Yamal is fully aware of this.

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The Old City of Jerusalem, a walled nucleus sacred to Jews, Muslims, and Christians, has once again become a funnel of ultranationalist chants, pushes, and insults. Since noon, thousands of young ultranationalist Jews – many of them settlers who arrived from different parts of Israel and the West Bank – have flooded the narrow streets of the Muslim quarter during their celebration of Jerusalem Day, the day on which Israel commemorates the conquest of East Jerusalem in 1967, the part of the city with a Muslim majority.The result, one more year, has been a show of force loaded with tension, intimidation, and verbal violence against Palestinians, activists, and journalists. Amidst the morning chaos, several groups of volunteers from the Jewish-Arab movement against the occupation, Standing Together, were trying to form a human barrier between ultranationalist groups and Palestinians. “We act as a protective presence. We try to stop violence with non-violent techniques, with our bodies. We know we can be arrested, but we don't want to leave the city in the hands of extremists or further divide Jerusalem,” explained one of the organization's activists. According to him, the movement has grown year after year to be 400 strong today.In the early afternoon, the swarm of ultranationalist Jews entering through the Damascus Gate, the entrance connecting East Jerusalem with the Muslim Quarter and the main access for Palestinians to the Old City, was impressive: human rivers of flags advanced slowly amidst dances, drums, and chants. "We need another Nakba" or "May your people burn" were some of the main slogans. "We must eliminate them [the Arabs] because they want to kill us. It is our day," said one of the few demonstrators who agreed to speak with the press.Entire buses have unloaded groups of young people wearing kippahs – the typical hat of Jews – carrying giant banners, Israeli flags, and flags of the Third Temple, a religious symbol used by messianic movements that advocate for the construction of a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount, the site where the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, stands today. Mid-afternoon, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir arrived at the march to applause after visiting the Temple Mount during the morning. Shortly after, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also joined. As every year, the marches ended at the Western Wall.However, not all participants in the march shared the more radical chants. "We are celebrating the unification of the city and the aggressive ones are isolated cases," defended a young man with an Israeli flag over his shoulders. "I believe there is a peaceful solution under Israeli control for the entire city. I don't like Palestinians being beaten," he added.Throughout the day, Palestinian businesses in the Muslim quarter have closed. “It’s as if for a few hours the city stopped being ours”, said the owner of a small, almost empty grocery store. “I’m not afraid, but today it’s better to stay open as little as possible”, he affirmed. According to the authorities, more than 4,000 agents, including soldiers and police, have been deployed to secure this part of the city.Israel dissolves Parliament

The tension in the streets coincides with a delicate political moment: this Wednesday the parties of Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition have registered a bill to dissolve the Israeli Parliament early and call elections, in a maneuver with which Netanyahu tries to control the pace of the political crisis before the opposition capitalizes on the internal rupture of the government, according to Israeli media. The text proposes holding elections within a minimum period of ninety days after the law's approval, which would open the door to elections as early as the end of August or the beginning of September, instead of October.The crisis has been triggered by the conflict with the ultra-Orthodox parties over the exemption from compulsory military service. After months of negotiations without agreement, the ultra-Orthodox faction Degel HaTorah announced this week that it would support dissolving Parliament in the face of the government's inability to pass a law guaranteeing the military exemption for the ultra-Orthodox. Next week, the bill will undergo a first vote. If it overcomes this first hurdle, the proposal will have to pass three more votes before officially triggering the election call.

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Israel Katz, Israeli Defense Minister, has lashed out at Lamine Yamal for , on Monday in Barcelona. In a tweet in Spanish, Katz accused the Barça star of "inciting hatred", and resorted to the mantra that defending Palestinians is supporting terrorism. Katz has asked Barça to distance itself from it.

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The night of April 29 to 30, the Israeli navy stormed the Global Sumud Flotillathe Israeli navy boarded the Global Sumud FlotillaApril 29, 5 p.m.

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Israel released the two detainees from the Gaza Flotilla this Sunday, Catalan-Palestinian Saif Abukeshek and Brazilian Thiago Ávila, after "six brutal days," according to activists, detained in a prison in the south of the country. Abukeshek arrived this afternoon at El Prat airport, where he was received by family, friends, and fellow activists, and Ávila will fly from Egypt to Brazil. The Israeli navy arrested the two members of the civilian humanitarian mission last week, when the Israeli army stormed about twenty boats of the initiative in international waters.

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After nine days detained by Israel, the Catalan-Palestinian Saif Abukeshek and the Brazilian Thiago Ávila, activists from the Flotilla heading to Gaza, will be released and expelled from the country. The Israeli army intercepted both of them in international waters while participating in a mission aimed at breaking the blockade in the Strip.

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The auditorium of the University of Barcelona was too small this Friday to host the event “Law and Genocide,” with the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, Palestinian lawyer Raji Sourani, and jurist Elisenda Calvet. Organized by the European Office for Judicial Resistance (BERJ) and the Coalition Stop Complicity with Israel, the event was a vindication of international law at a time when it seems like a dead letter. Both have called for an end to the "colonial mentality" towards Palestine.

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