The Spanish Ministry of the Interior has ordered extreme security for the Jewish community in Melilla after a pro-Palestinian demonstration ended with several riots in front of the city’s synagogue and several Jewish-run establishments, forcing the police to intervene to prevent the situation from escalating.
The riots, in which no one was injured, took place mainly in front of the Or Zaruah synagogue in the historic centre of the city, where some thirty hotheads, outside the peaceful demonstration, burnt Israeli flags shouting “Israel murderer” and threatened to force their way into the temple.
According to police sources, there was also coercion of some Jewish shopkeepers, which did not go any further due to the rapid intervention of the officers, who also doubled their vigilance at the Hispano-Israeli school to prevent further incidents.
The altercations in the autonomous city are the first of their kind in Spain since the outbreak of the armed conflict between Hamas and Israel on 7 October. Melilla is home to one of the main Jewish communities in Spain, with around 1,200 members. Until now, coexistence with the city’s majority Muslim community has been exemplary, with no notable clashes during previous crises in the Middle East.
The President of Melilla today called for calm after the incidents. Juan José Imbroda asked that “external conflicts, however painful they may be, should not affect the exemplary coexistence” of the people of Melilla, as has always existed between the different cultures and religions that coexist in peace in the Spanish city in North Africa.
