Hundreds fill Malaga's Plaza de la Merced for a demonstration of solidarity with Gaza

Black, white, green and red filled Plaza de la Merced as the Palestinian flag decorated the Malaga city square on Tuesday evening. The sound of pots and pans provided the soundtrack to the largest rally of the many that have taken place in Malaga in solidarity with the Gazan people attacked by Israel and in condemnation of genocide. Images of starving children have resonated in the consciences of the people of Malaga.

Three groups, Málaga Por Palestina, Voces De Palestina and Axarquía Por Palestina, organised the demonstration. Hatem Abdul had a few words for SUR before the protest officially began: "I feel a lot of frustration, pain and indignation. Things are getting worse and worse and the world is still not waking up. If you haven't reacted by now, you are an accomplice, you are part of the genocide, it is no longer neutrality. We have to move from words to deeds, cut diplomatic relations, trade relations, all kinds of relations, it is the only way to make Israel understand."

Adham, 35, who has been in Malaga for a decade, told the newspaper. that his family has been displaced for seven months: they do not live in Gaza, but in the West Bank, but that area is also suffering attacks from the Israeli army to expand illegal settlements. His family have been evicted from their camp in Tulkarem. "I am sad, frustrated and angry". There was no hiding his vulnerability, his sadness.

Alaa is from Gaza. He has family there. He talks to them when he can. Most recently, he was able to talk to his brother last week. "He told me that finding food is very difficult and that what food there is is very expensive," he said. His eyes were shining, he couldn't hide his emotion at seeing the square full: "There are many people with us. People know what is happening in Gaza."

The first to make their presence felt in Plaza de la Merced were the young people from Málaga Por Palestina, the group who camped out in the university library some months ago. Some of them compared what the Gazans are suffering with the Desbandá (the massacre of those escaping from Malaga to Almería during the civil war).

The recent media coverage depicting starving children and the massacres in food distribution areas have stuck in the minds and flooded the words of those gathered: "It is unbelievable that people go to ask for food and they are killed," said María Jesús Lambistos Roca and Mercedes López Moret, both social workers, who added: "We have to demand that it stops. I don't know what's going to happen next. It is genocide with the whole world watching." And they also wanted to make it clear: "There are Israelis inside the country who are protesting against what their government is doing."

The mission of these protests, said Miriam Rengel, is to "prod governments" into action. "They have to see that we are against them," she added.

But the function of these rallies is also to educate. Rami, 16, admitted that he was at the rally because his mother, who is Lebanese, told him to. He tried to define genocide: "When one country kills the civilians of another without opposition." Someone explained to him that what defines genocide is the desire to annihilate a people. "In all wars there is killing, but here... we all know what it is," added another woman in the group that included Rami, his mother Dania, as well as protesters from Iraq and Tunisia.

Amina, a French-Algerian woman, went to the demonstration with her three and one-and-a-half-year-old daughters. They live in Marbella and travelled to Malaga city for the sole purpose of attending the protest. The little girls are wearing T-shirts designed by themselves in solidarity with the children of Gaza and those around the world: "It's for them, for a future of peace and a world of unity and justice," said the mother.

The rally was full of people of all ages, families, groups of friends. It was a multicultural gathering. The slogans and banners were also written in English in some cases. And there were feminists: "Feminism is internationalist and defends human rights everywhere in the world."

The protesters read out a manifesto which announced that: "Gaza is in an officially recognised famine phase."

"We need to remember that starving the Palestinian people is not the only crime. It is not enough to drop food from aeroplanes, as some European governments are now doing, which, after months of ignoring the genocide, recognise the Palestinian state in a cynical gesture that seeks to wash their image. The urgent thing is not to throw crumbs from the sky, but to stop the massacre, open the borders, end the siege and break off all relations with the Zionist state of Israel."

They reiterated their demands and commitments: the total rupture of diplomatic, commercial and military relations with Israel, the immediate release without charge of all repressed activists and the recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to resist by all means. "This did not start on 7 October 2023. It started more than 75 years ago, in the Nakba of 1948, with the beginning of the colonisation, expulsion and systematic murder of the Palestinian people," they shouted.

The protest was scheduled for 8pm. Two hours later there were still people gathered. Although the pots and pans could no longer be heard. And the slogans that had been chanted minutes earlier, such as "It's not a war, it's a genocide," had been silenced.