Gaza and Palestinian cities to become Barcelona's 11th district

Barcelona will designate Gaza and other Palestinian cities as the city's 11th district, Mayor Jaume Collboni announced on Tuesday.

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

"The city now has an 11th district," Collboni said during a visit to a UNRWA refugee camp in Jordan, just days after being barred from entering Israel.

The mayor added that the initiative will strengthen Barcelona’s commitment to Gaza and the other Palestinian cities, enhancing technical cooperation "until peace arrives."

He said the plan is to have the project operational before the end of the year, with city council technicians providing ongoing support in collaboration with Palestinian projects in urban planning, health, accessibility, and education.

"We want technicians to be on the ground and also to host technicians from there to be trained in Barcelona, as per their requests," he said.

Once operational, the project will complement the increase in aid that Barcelona provides to the Palestinian population through UNRWA, which will reach €400,000 per year, double the current budget.