Barcelona mayor to travel to Palestine before summer to launch '11th district' initiative

Barcelona mayor Jaume Collboni will travel to Palestine before summer to launch the 11th District initiative.

The project, announced in August 2025, will symbolically make Gaza and other Palestinian cities a new district of the Catalan capital.

The initiative aims to increase cooperation and solidarity with the affected territories, as well as support their reconstruction.

The mayor had previously planned to visit the area in August last year, but Israel vetoed his entry at the last minute, forcing him to cancel the trip.

The initiative was originally conceived in the 1990s by then-mayor Pasqual Maragall to help reconstruct Sarajevo after the siege of the city during the ethnically charged Bosnian War.

Collboni said the "successful" model would now be applied to Palestinian cities, which will symbolically join Barcelona’s 10 existing districts, allowing the project to be equipped with administrative infrastructure, resources, and its own team.