Alex Trelinski
SEVERAL hundred people demonstrated on Wednesday night in Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla in support of Palestine over Israel’s military action against the Hamas terrorist group.
Some of the crowd went to the main synagogue of the city, Or Zaruah, located in the heart of the city, which forced police to intervene.
Shouting ‘Israel, murderer’, several dozen demonstrators, waving Palestinian flags, showed their rejection of Israel’s retaliation for the Hamas attack almost a fortnight ago.
Policia Nacional officers were deployed in front of the synagogue after some protestors wanted to enter the building.
Officers secured the entrance, although at times they were overwhelmed, according to some reports.
According local media, some of the demonstrators wandered through the streets intimidating shop and business owners of Jewish origin.
Melilla’s president, Juan Jose Imbroda, appealed to people to maintain the ‘exemplary coexistence’ that different cultures have in the autonomous city and for the good relationship not to be affected by ‘external conflicts’.
Imbroda called on the people of Melilla to work together on a day-to-day basis to ‘find a better world and a better life for all’, working for the family.
He also appealed for Israel and Palestine to reach a ‘just and lasting’ peace, because ‘peace, to be lasting, has to be just’.
