Carpet of stars with names of children killed in Gaza covers Barcelona's Sant Jaume square

Artistic protest action calls for breaking of institutional relations and arms trade with Israel

A doll symbolizing a child killed in Gaza in Barcelona's Plaça de Sant Jaume square as part of a protest
A doll symbolizing a child killed in Gaza in Barcelona's Plaça de Sant Jaume square as part of a protest / Ariadna Comas
Catalan News

Catalan News | @catalannews | Barcelona

December 30, 2023 01:01 PM

A new protest action against the war in Gaza has painted Plaça Sant Jaume in Barcelona with a carpet of white paper stars with the names of children killed in the territory in recent months.

The artistic action, organized by the Palestinian Community of Catalonia and the entity Enough Complicity with Israel, calls for the breaking of institutional relations and the arms trade with Israel.

The demonstration took place in front of the Catalan government headquarters building "to remind the government that you cannot normalize commercial relations with a state that in recent weeks has indiscriminately murdered more than twenty thousand Palestinians," organizers said.

With the slogan 'Bethlehem without Christmas', hundreds of people took part in the protest on Friday afternoon in memory of the Palestinians who lost their lives. 

The protests included a simulation of a bombing in Gaza. As soon as the bombs went off, dozens of people lay on the ground as if they had fallen down.

After this, there was the reading of a manifesto and a large carpet of paper stars with the names of the children killed in Gaza since October 7 covered the ground.

The image wanted to show "a graphic representation of this genocide, to remember that they are not just numbers," organizers said. "They were lives that have been taken, denied, annihilated."