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.

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.

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.

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.

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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The Italian Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, has called this Friday from Barcelona for an investigation into the role of the Greek authorities in the Israeli assault on the Global Sumud Flotilla last week. "How is it possible that the Greek authorities, instead of intervening to prevent Israel from committing a crime, participated in the operation? They picked up all participants except two," she said, referring to Palestinian-Catalan Saif Abukeshek and Brazilian Thiago Ávila, who are detained and prosecuted in Israel and who have reported torture through their lawyers.

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The Gaza Flotilla sails again. Several boats set sail this Friday from Crete after a week ago about twenty ships were assaulted by Israel in international waters. The civil humanitarian mission thus resumes its course to Gaza. The next stop will be Turkey, where it will make a technical stop and more boats will join. It is expected that a total of more than 30 ships will sail.

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Israel released most of the participants of the Flotilla this Friday that the army detained in Wednesday's assault,but is holding two spokespeople for the movement: the Palestinian-Catalan Saif Abukeshek and the Brazilian Thiago Ávila. Around 170 sailors, including about twenty Catalans, have been handed over to Greek authorities and have disembarked on the island of Crete, but the two spokespeople remain detained on the Israeli frigate where they were transferred after the assault. Benjamin Netanyahu's government has said they will be transferred to Israel for processing.

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Last October, Donald Trump said he was considering asking Israel for the release of Marwan Barghouti, the most popular Palestinian to succeed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Barghouti has been imprisoned for the last 24 years of his life, convicted by a military court for ordering the deaths of five Israelis during the Second Intifada. All these years in prison have only increased his popularity, even though he has spent most of his time in isolation. In the last prisoner exchange, just a few months ago, Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out his release because he considers him too great a symbol with a future on the Palestinian political scene.

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As international attention continues to be focused on tensions with Iran, the Israeli government has taken a further step in another key direction: occupation. With little media fanfare, it has approved a plan of 307 million euros to strengthen the Israeli presence in settlements in the Golan Heights, a Syrian territory that the international community continues to consider occupied by Israel.The project, planned for the period 2026-2030, aims to turn Katzrin, an Israeli settlement in the west, into "the first city of the Golan," in the words of Ze'ev Elkin, a member of the Ministry of Finance. According to various Israeli media, the plan includes investments in infrastructure, public services —such as hospitals and veterinary centers—, universities, and housing. All with a clear objective: to attract at least 3,000 Israeli families to the territory.The announcement came after a meeting in Jerusalem between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and local Golan leaders, such as Yehuda Dua and Uri Kellner. The message was unequivocal: the government not only maintains its commitment to settlements but wants to intensify it. On numerous occasions, Netanyahu has stated that the Golan will remain under Israeli control, a statement that clashes with international law. The Golan Heights have been recognized as territory occupied by Israel since 1967, after the Six-Day War, and were formally annexed in 1981."As the logic of Israel's colonial project is to obtain the land without the indigenous population, the Golan Heights are considered a successful model of expropriation and expansion, unlike the West Bank and Gaza," explains to ARA Neve Gordon, an Israeli academic specializing in politics, human rights, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a professor at Queen Mary University of London.According to him, the key lies in 1967: "The ethnic cleansing was almost complete and, as a result, there has been no sustained resistance to Israeli rule. About 130,000 Syrians fled and could not return, and only about 5,000 remained. This allowed the Golan to be integrated into both domestic law and the Israeli public imagination." The result is that, today, for a large majority of Israeli Jews —more than 90%, according to Gordon— the Golan is already part of Israel. This is a clear contrast with the West Bank, where the Palestinian presence has prevented full integration. A pattern of annexation

The expansion of settlements in the Golan is not an exception, but part of a pattern. The settlement policy deployed there presents clear parallels with what has been happening for decades in the West Bank: a combination of civilian presence and state support to consolidate control over disputed territories, always under the umbrella of security.In the West Bank, more than 700,000 Israeli settlers live today in settlements scattered throughout the territory. And the pace does not stop. In recent weeks, the government has approved 34 new settlements, in a decision that, according to the Israeli organization Peace Now, was made "secretly".Israeli media, such as Channel 24 or the newspaper Haaretz, have described the decision as the largest number of settlements ever approved in a single government session. According to this information, nine of the 34 approved settlements are existing outposts (settlements that are illegal even under Israeli law, as they are built without government authorization) which will now be retroactively legalized, while the rest have not yet been built. In total, the plan includes 20 new settlements, nine outposts, two expansions, and three nuclei that will become independent from existing settlements. Settlements and outposts vary in size, and can range from a single dwelling to multi-story building complexes.“Outposts are like settlements: an instrument of expropriation and expansion —describes Gordon—. Outposts, like settlements, are illegal under international law, but they were introduced just over two decades ago, after a US-led settlement freeze, and have ended up functioning as a tool to legitimize formal settlements: they are presented as their illegal version, when in reality both are,” he adds.The phenomenon, far from being isolated, is part of a sustained policy over time. Since 1967, settlements have been a central piece of Israeli strategy, but under Netanyahu's governments their expansion has accelerated. Israeli organizations such as ACLED or B’Tselem and analysis centers such as Chatham House warn of a simultaneous increase in settlements, land confiscations, and settler violence, especially since the start of the offensive in Gaza.Since the arrival of the current government, 103 new settlements have been approved, adding to the 127 already existing. If the legalization of outposts is added, the total in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has risen from 141 in 2022 to 210 currently, according to data cited by Al-Jazeera. In parallel, the government has allocated 119 million euros to the Ministry of Settlements and National Missions, the body responsible for authorizing these implantations.

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The residents of Bages have organized this weekend to demand that the company ICL –Israel Chemicals Limited– leave the territory. A thousand people spent the night in a camp in Callús as part of a mobilization driven by Revoltes de la Terra to denounce the environmental and social impact of this company that has been exploiting the region's salt mines since 1998. The intention is to stay for the entire weekend.

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Different civil society organizations have filed a complaint with the Prosecutor's Office against the board of directors of the company Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF), as well as against directors of six of its subsidiaries, for the company's involvement in the construction, operation and maintenance of the Jerusalem Light Rail (JLR), which according to the complainants has allegedly contributed "to the consolidation of the illegal annexation of East Jerusalem by Israel; to the maintenance and expansion of Israel's illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory, and to the maintenance of discriminatory and inhumane practices by Israel against the Palestinian population".

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Until the 26th of this month, you have time to go to the Heartbreak Hotel theatre, in the heart of Sants, to see Return to Haifa, the magnificent adaptation of the story of the same name by the Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, which Àlex Rigola has adapted and directed, with a cast of four actors and actresses who offer literally impressive performances: Chantal Aimée, Jordi Figueras, Ariadna Gil and Carles Roig. Return to Haifa, the original story, is a testimonial novel that recounts the reunion of a mother and father with their son twenty years after they had to abandon him, when he was just a baby, due to the Nakba, that is, the expulsion of the Palestinians from their country, leaving behind all their belongings and also, often, their loved ones. This happened in 1948, just as the State of Israel was founded. The protagonist couple returns there twenty years later (Kanafani wrote the story in 1969; you can read it in Catalan in the translation by Anna Gil Bardají, published by Club Editor) to find their city again, their streets, their home, apparently as they left them, but now in the hands of the occupiers. And to meet their son. The break, the wound, is impossible to repair or heal.Return to Haifa, the play, brings all this to the stage with undeniable austerity and authority. As soon as the spectator enters the small room of the Heartbreak Hotel, they are greeted by Rigola and the four performers, and the director briefly presents the performance: he calls it theatre of urgency, conceived to provide an artistic response to one of the great political and human crises of our time: the genocide of Gaza perpetrated by the government and army of Israel in the face of the passivity, or acquiescence, or complicity, of the international community. It is literary theatre, text-based theatre: the actors and actresses serve the text scrupulously, while dramatizing it with a depth free of any affectation, at the antipodes of any temptation towards emphasis. To say that the result is breathtaking at several moments is accurate. The length of the play is just under an hour, but it reaches far and deep.The infamy of Gaza, of the West Bank, continues its course while the wars in Iran, in Lebanon, in a Middle East set ablaze by Netanyahu and Trump, two war criminals who have led the planet into a black hole full of destruction and corpses, partly for their own profit, partly for the profit of the elites who support them, partly for the delirium of the exercise of absolute and unpunished power, also continue. A little further on is Putin in Ukraine and, below, bleeding as always, Yemen, Somalia, the Congo. Faced with all this, closing oneself in one afternoon to see Return to Haifa in a theater like the Heartbreak, where everything is in close-up and where the actors cannot and do not want to hide (but neither can the spectators), may seem like a simply symbolic response. But it is not so: it is an active response, it means affirming ourselves in humanity and civilization in the face of atrocity and barbarism. And it is excellent theater, among the best that can be seen now.

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The Brazilian Thiago Ávila (1986) is one of the coordinators of the Global Sumud Flotilla, the new international flotilla that seeks to break the blockade of Gaza and the largest yet. Ávila, an activist and political analyst, was part of a previous flotilla, which was intercepted last year. The mission plans to mobilize more than eighty vessels and more than 1,000 participants from about a hundred countries. It sets sail from Barcelona in an even more dangerous context of regional war and will be accompanied, up to the exclusion zone imposed by Israel, by the ships of Open Arms and Greenpeace. Its objective: to reactivate international mobilization in support of the Palestinian people. After the farewell events this weekend at Moll de la Fusta, 41 vessels will set sail from Barcelona in the coming days bound for Gaza, when weather conditions permit. In Sicily, more boats from France and Italy will join, and more vessels will be added along the rest of the route through the Mediterranean.

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The Israeli Parliament approved this Monday one of the most controversial laws in recent years: it allows the death penalty by hanging for Palestinians convicted of terrorism offenses that have resulted in fatalities. The measure has been harshly criticized as discriminatory by European countries and human rights organizations. The new legislative text, called “death penalty for terrorists”, introduces profound changes to the Penal Code: it allows courts to impose capital punishment without the need for a prior request from the Public Prosecutor's Office and without unanimity among judges; a simple majority is sufficient. Judges will also no longer need to have a superior military rank. In Israel, capital punishment already existed for war crimes, crimes against humanity, or crimes against the Jewish people. In practice, however, the few death sentences that have been handed down have ended up being commuted to life imprisonment. The legal text, driven by the far-right party Otzma Yehudit, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, was approved with 62 votes in favor –including that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu– and 48 against. The objective is clear: “To establish the death penalty for terrorists who have perpetrated deadly attacks”, as the text literally states. Thus, any person who “intentionally causes the death of another with the aim of harming a citizen or resident of Israel, and with the intention of denying the existence of the State of Israel, may be sentenced to death or life imprisonment”, it adds.The law will be applicable to any territory under Israel's effective control and establishes a dual judicial circuit: one for civil courts within Israel and another for military courts in the West Bank, which judge Palestinians exclusively under military law. In the Israeli military courts in the West Bank, Palestinian prisoners convicted of armed operations that cause the death of an Israeli will face the mandatory death penalty, unless exceptional circumstances are detected that allow for a life sentence. In practice, the legislation will turn the death penalty into the default punishment, according to analysts. In Israeli civil courts, however, the penalty can be death or life imprisonment. In any case, those convicted will be held in separate facilities, with no right to visits except from authorized personnel, and legal consultations will be conducted solely by videoconference. As for executions, they will be carried out within a maximum of ninety days from the sentence.No avenues for appeal

Various organizations, including the Palestinian Prisoners Society, the Commission of Detainees' Affairs, the Addameer Association for Prisoner Support and Human Rights, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, denounce that this legal framework consolidates a system that specifically applies the death penalty to Palestinians and eliminates key avenues for appeal or pardon.“The law subjects Palestinian prisoners to a draconian and racist killing machine,” Sari Bachi, executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), explains to ARA. “The death penalty is explicitly applied to Palestinians, but not to Jews. It is applied to those who kill with the motivation of denying the existence of the State of Israel, that is, to Palestinians. If a Jewish settler kills a Palestinian for nationalist reasons, they cannot be sentenced to death and will be tried in civilian courts with guarantees because they do not deny the Israeli state. In the case of a Palestinian, the death penalty is the default punishment within a military system with a conviction rate of 99%. This institutionalizes a regime of Jewish supremacy over Palestinians,” she adds.Along the same lines, other Israeli and Palestinian organizations – such as Adalah, the HaMoked Center for the Defense of the Individual, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, B’Tselem, Parents Against Child Detention, and Zazim – also warn that the law violates international law, especially the right to life, as well as the regulations governing occupation. They recall that, according to the Hague Regulations, Israel has no sovereign authority to legislate over the population of the West Bank and must treat people living under occupation with dignity, even if they have been accused of committing crimes.“From a human rights perspective, the law largely contradicts Israeli law on dignity and liberty. Furthermore, the ninety-day period from the final verdict to execution, with virtually no room for requesting a review or other avenues, directly goes against international legal principles,” details Karen Saar, from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), to l’ARA.Following Hamas's attacks on October 7, 2023, several far-right Israeli lawmakers began pushing for the approval of this law. Minister of Security Ben-Gvir has justified that the death penalty can act as a deterrent. However, Amnesty International states that there is no evidence that capital punishment is more effective than life imprisonment in reducing crime.In recent years, human rights organizations have reported a significant increase in cases of abuse and torture in prisons and military detention centers. In December, the Israeli agency Walla! reported that 110 Palestinian prisoners had died in Israeli custody between January 23, 2023, and June 25 of last year. Before the final vote on the legislative text, the law had already generated strong opposition both internally and internationally. Experts from the UN Human Rights Council warned that the norm violated the right to life and could constitute cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment. The European Union also expressed concern, and the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom warned that the law could “undermine Israel’s democratic commitments.”

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