District 11 for Hamas Gaza: Barcelona’s Islamization |
In recent weeks, social media has once again been buzzing about Barcelona’s District 11. Officially, this once-cosmopolitan Catalan city on the Mediterranean Sea is divided into ten districts comprising a total of seventy-three neighbourhoods. However, without any major urban development project, a new “district” was presented at the municipal council in September 2025.
Through this initiative, Socialist mayor Jaume Collboni — a key political ally of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the leader of Europe’s woke Judenfrei movement — decided to channel Barcelona’s full support to Palestine, with an initial budget of more than 1.5 million euros, as stated on the city council’s own website.
According to official sources, the new district “will work in all areas agreed with Palestinian cities: urban planning, public space, water and urban greenery, resilience, health, education, accessibility, economic promotion, and smart cities and innovation. The project will also channel initiatives promoted by civil society.” Yet this apparent “gesture of solidarity” is not truly evidence of deep concern for Palestinians themselves.
Last year, Barcelona City Council chose to suspend its twinning agreement with the Israeli city of Tel Aviv and to avoid any minimal collaboration with the authorities of the State of Israel. This move was proposed by the current Socialist-led administration, with the support of far-left parties such as ERC — heir to Lluís Companys, under whose mandate more than eight thousand Catalans were executed, mainly for dissenting or for being Christians —, the Comuns (formerly linked to Pablo Iglesias, whose political project Podemos received funding from the Ayatollahs) and the CUP, an antisystem, pro-terrorist formation.
Moreover, with the blessing of Barcelona City Council, the Catalan capital is set to become the departure point for the so-called “Gaza Flotilla,” which will set sail on April 12 with around one hundred vessels, including the participation of the NGO Open Arms. This organisation is linked to the promotion of mass migration and the breakdown of border control in Europe, and has clashed with governments in countries such as Hungary and Italy.
Last year’s mission proved once again to be largely symbolic: from a distance and without genuinely helping the civilian population of Gaza, it was perceived as support for an Islamist terrorist group. The consequences are well known, and it is legitimate for the Israel Defense Forces to control maritime traffic in the area for security reasons.
That said, this highlights the selective concern of woke progressivism for women and homosexuals. Barcelona likes to present itself as an “open, welcoming and progressive city,” often contrasting with the more conservative sociological right in the Madrid metropolitan area. The current mayor, Jaume Collboni, proudly declares himself the city’s first openly gay mayor (the previous mayoress, a staunch activist for the “okupación” — the illegal occupation of private property — and for the flotilla causes, declares herself as non-heterosexual). Yet in Palestinian territories, homosexuals face death sentences or severe deprivation of liberty, with many fleeing to Israel. As an objective fact, the only Pride parade in the Middle East that can be held freely takes place in Tel Aviv.
In any case, Barcelona appears to be following the same path as Paris, non-elite Brussels and London. Portals such as Eurostat indicate that Barcelona ranks among the most dangerous cities not only in Spain but in Europe, where it is easiest to suffer robberies — tripling the average national Spanish rates. In fact, according to official data from the Catalan Department of Interior, more than 90% of thefts and 83% of violent robberies in Barcelona are committed by foreigners (in the case of illegal occupations of properties, the percentage also exceeds 90%). Likewise, several hundred individuals accumulated thousands of arrests in 2025.
Yet what is the origin of these foreigners? According to a report by Universidad CEU San Pablo, through its CEFAS study unit, approximately 700,000 Muslims live in Catalonia — nearly one in ten inhabitants. Drawing on INE birth data, the observatory estimates that 19% of babies born in Catalonia in 2024 had at least one Muslim parent, “the highest percentage in Spain.” This proportion is well above the national average of 11%, which “reflects a particularly significant presence among the youngest population” (surpassing even Andalusia, one of Spain’s largest and most populous regions and the one closest to Morocco).
Foreign-born Muslims represent 22% of men aged 20 to 44 in Lleida, 18% in Girona, 16% in Tarragona and 12% in Barcelona — all figures above the national average of around 8%. Nearly 85% of first-generation Muslim immigrants come from Africa, and almost 65% were born in Morocco, followed by Pakistan, Senegal, Algeria, Mali, Gambia and Bangladesh. According to the report, 19% of first-generation immigrants residing in Spain “would be of Islamic faith.” It is also noteworthy that the fertility rate of Muslim women in Spain is “far higher” than that of Spanish women and non-Muslim immigrants.
While Barcelona symbolically adopts Gaza — a territory ruled by the Islamist terrorist group Hamas — as its 11th District, the same radical ideology that governs there is gaining ground among segments of Catalonia’s rapidly growing Muslim population.
Catalonia has long been one of the Spanish regions with the highest number of arrests of individuals linked to jihadist activities, according to data from Spain’s Ministry of the Interior, and it hosts a significant share of the nearly 2,000 mosques and Islamic prayer centres in Spain. It should be recalled that in August 2017, an Islamic State-linked attack struck Barcelona, claiming several lives. The cell behind the attacks — known as the Ripoll cell — was radicalised in the small town of Ripoll in Girona province. There, the local imam Abdelbaki Es Satty served as the main radicaliser of a group of young men, mostly second-generation immigrants of Moroccan origin, who had grown up apparently integrated into Catalan society.
A clear contemporary example of this ongoing trend is the upcoming IV Congress of Young Muslims of Catalonia, scheduled for December 19-21 in El Prat de Llobregat. The event is organised by the Union of Islamic Communities of Catalonia (UCIDCAT) and the youth movement Entre Jóvenes, entities that have received public subsidies from the Catalan authorities.
Among the prominent speakers are Taoufik Cheddadi, arrested twice for links to Islamic radicalism, and Yusuf Soldado, known as “the Salafist of Mataró,” who was detained in 2015 during a counter-terrorism operation. Both will deliver lectures on education, values and religious leadership aimed at young Muslims. The congress will also feature Wafae Moussaoui, a psychologist who promotes so-called “Islamic psychology” based on readings of the Quran.
In this context, a new political force has emerged in Catalonia. Beyond opposing the progressive left’s policies, it positions itself explicitly as anti-Islam and pro-Israel. This formation is attracting voters who support Catalan independence and therefore would not back national parties like VOX, while raising alarms about the advance of radical Islam and demanding firmer measures to protect public security and Western values.
This formation is attracting voters who support Catalan independence and therefore would not back national parties like VOX, while raising alarms about the advance of radical Islam and demanding firmer measures to protect public security and Western values. Unlike the mainstream pro-independence parties that have often aligned with or tolerated pro-Palestinian activism, this emerging force explicitly warns that the same radical ideology ruling Hamas-controlled Gaza is taking root in Catalan neighbourhoods. It demands concrete action — from stricter immigration rules to protecting Jewish communities — and has found resonance among independence supporters alarmed by the Barcelona City Council’s symbolic embrace of Gaza through its District 11 project.
This growing hostility towards Jews and Israel is not limited to rhetoric. Ariel Muzicant, vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, has urged Jews and Israeli citizens to avoid travelling to Spain due to what he describes as an unprecedented antisemitic climate. “There is an unbearable anti-Jewish and anti-Israel atmosphere in Spain, the likes of which have not been seen since the Inquisition of 1492,” he stated, pointing to declarations and actions promoted or tolerated by the government. Muzicant also warned that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s plans to regularise hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslim illegal migrants would further endanger Spain’s small Jewish community, which already lives in extreme fear.
This hostility is not merely rhetorical. On 24 January 2026, more than 20 Jewish graves were vandalised in the Les Corts Jewish cemetery in Barcelona. The Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities (FCJE) condemned the “despicable antisemitic act” of desecration, while Catalan police confirmed the incident and opened an investigation. The attacks took place just days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, forcing some Jewish sections of the city’s cemeteries to close temporarily for protection.
Similar incidents are appearing beyond Catalonia. In Villaviciosa de Odón, in the Madrid region, the Civil Guard is investigating an antisemitic threat sent to two French Jewish students: a note reading “Jewish rats, Palestine will win,” accompanied by swastikas and Palestinian flags. While Madrid’s sociological rightward shift and its stronger presence of Hispanic American and Chinese immigrants have so far limited the scale of Islamisation compared to Barcelona, concerns are growing. Regional President Isabel Díaz Ayuso of the centre-right Popular Party (PP) has promoted an open-door policy of welcoming all migrants as “Spaniards,” even equating the Islamic veil with the Catholic rosary. While Ayuso has maintained a friendly stance toward Israel, critics argue that this assistentialist approach risks creating an “effect of attraction” that could accelerate demographic and cultural changes in the capital.
Even in Madrid’s universities — where public institutions such as the Complutense University (UCM) maintain a strong left-wing academic environment often described as a “Soviet-style” bubble — Jewish students report harassment. Private universities show a more diverse, less woke atmosphere, yet isolated antisemitic incidents persist. These events across Spain illustrate how the combination of unchecked mass migration, political rhetoric from the left, and reluctance to confront radical Islam is eroding the safety of Jewish life in the country.
Barcelona’s decision to symbolically adopt Gaza — governed by the Islamist terrorist group Hamas — as its “District 11,” while severing ties with Tel Aviv and preparing to host another Gaza flotilla, reveals a profound moral and strategic disconnect. As the city pours resources into solidarity with Palestinian causes and overlooks radicalisation in its own neighbourhoods — from the Ripoll cell that spawned the 2017 attacks to ongoing jihadist arrests that make Catalonia a national hotspot — its streets grow less safe and its small Jewish community lives in fear.
Spain is rapidly becoming an unsafe destination for Jewish students and visitors. Warnings from World Jewish Congress vice-president Ariel Muzicant, the desecration of graves in Les Corts, antisemitic threats in Madrid universities, and the harassment of Jewish students paint a worrying picture. This climate is exacerbated by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s clear alignment with the Ayatollahs’ regime and his plans to regularise hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslim migrants. Even Ukrainian refugees, fleeing Russian aggression, should take note: the Iranian regime that backs Putin and supplies drones for the war against Ukraine is the same ideological force increasingly tolerated within Spain’s borders.
Europe, and Barcelona in particular, cannot credibly champion distant causes while eroding its own security and values at home. The jihadist threat does not distinguish between Israelis and Europeans. Prioritising one’s own house is not xenophobia — it is the first duty of responsible governance.