The Diplomat
Pro-Israeli demonstrators rallied yesterday in front of the Qatari Embassy in Madrid to demand “the release of the 241 hostages who were brutally kidnapped by the Hamas terrorist organization last October 7,” the Israeli Embassy states on its X (formerly Twitter) account.
The demonstrators, all dressed in black to reflect the national mourning Israel is going through, carried signs with the photographs of the hostages, as well as Israeli and Spanish flags. The organizers of the rally blamed the Qatari authorities for having collaborated with the Hamas attacks by allocating funds for the development of Gaza which, they said, were used by Hamas to buy weapons. As a result, the rally, mostly members of Jewish communities in Spain, called on the State of Qatar to “assist in the release of 240 hostages, the youngest of whom is 10 months old.”
Paradoxically, both Israel and the United States have these days thanked Qatar for its mediation to free four hostages captured on October 7, the day the terrorist organization began its attack on Israeli territory.
Practically at the same time and at a very short distance from the Qatari diplomatic headquarters, another group of demonstrators deployed 241 balloons in front of the European Parliament headquarters in Madrid in memory of the civilians kidnapped by Hamas and to demand from the EU authorities a greater involvement in the conflict.
“A heartbreaking exhibition with photographs of the abductees,” notes the Israeli Embassy, which makes special mention of the fact that, among those held are “30 babies and children, cruelly abducted from their homes, from their families and who have been surrounded by bloodthirsty terrorists for a month.”
