A banner reading “destroy Israel” was unfurled among the crowds at the Chupinazo, the rocket-launch ceremony that opens Pamplona’s San Fermín festival, in what local media describe as a recurring feature of the annual 6 July celebration.
Pamplona’s San Fermín festival got underway on Monday with its traditional Chupinazo ceremony, but the celebrations were again accompanied by political banners in the crowd, including one reading “destroy Israel.” According to Spanish outlet OKDiario, groups linked to the Basque nationalist left used the dense crowd gathered in the Plaza Consistorial to display large banners and flags with political messages as the rocket-launch ceremony approached, a pattern the outlet says has repeated on 6 July in previous years.
A Festival Opening Overshadowed by Politics
This year’s Chupinazo, marking the start of 209 uninterrupted hours of festivities, was lit by representatives of Navarre’s emergency health services, Clint Jean Louis Fernández and Araceli Sergio Aguilera, whose candidacy — put forward by the local peña La Escalerica — won a public vote with 3,775 of 11,740 votes cast, according to Spanish outlet elDiario.es. More than 14,000 people packed into the roughly 1,100 square metre Plaza Consistorial for the occasion.
Alongside the traditional flags of Navarre and the Basque Ikurriña displayed in the square, this year’s crowd also included several Palestinian flags and banners carrying messages such as “Stop genocide” and slogans directed against Israel, elDiario.es reported. A separate banner calling for the release of ETA prisoners was also displayed. OKDiario reported that these displays “contrast with the majority wish of the local cuadrillas [friend groups] to keep the day focused solely on the festivities.”
Part of a Recurring Pattern
This is not the first time a “destroy Israel” banner has appeared at the festival’s opening. At last year’s Chupinazo, the honour of lighting the ceremonial rocket went to Yala Nafarroa con Palestina, a pro-Palestinian platform chosen through the same public voting process, whose members shouted “Stop the genocide” and “Free Palestine” from the town hall balcony before lighting the fuse, according to Spanish outlet El Independiente. A “destroy Israel” banner was again visible among the crowd below.
That display drew a strong response from Israeli officials. Dan Poraz, Israel’s senior diplomat in Spain, wrote on social media at the time: “There was a time when crowds shouted ‘Death to the Jews’ in Europe’s public squares, or burned them alive. Today, they shout ‘Destroy Israel’, as in this photo. Same hatred. Same chants. A new mask. Israel is the ‘Jew’ of today.” His post was shared by the official account of Israel’s Foreign Ministry. The Israeli embassy in Spain had separately criticised Pamplona’s city council for selecting a platform it described as anti-Israeli to lead the 2025 ceremony.
Yala Nafarroa con Palestina, which says it represents 1,700 individuals and 230 collectives with the backing of international supporters, has said it has spent more than a year and a half working to draw attention to what it describes as genocide, occupation and apartheid in Palestine. One of the group’s representatives, Lidón Soriano, told reporters last year that she had felt compelled to add calls to “stop the genocide” and for a “free Palestine” to the traditional ceremonial phrase, saying: “It’s the message that the public has demanded,” in reference to the vote that saw her group selected to light the rocket.
