Anti-Israel protesters storm Manhattan Zara store on Black Friday

Keffiyeh-clad activists target Spanish fashion chain due to its presence in Israel; others protest in solidarity with Palestinians across Europe

Some 70 anti-Israel activists disrupted Black Friday shopping in Manhattan, storming a Zara store in midtown on one of the most crowded shopping days of the year.

At around 12:30 p.m., protesters wearing keffiyehs charged into the store, blowing whistles and chanting, “They fund the genocide,” The New York Post reported.

One protester carried a sign that read, “While you’re shopping, bombs are dropping,” according to the report. Police removed the group quickly, arresting four.

Protesters later went to demonstrate outside Apple and Microsoft stores, the report said. Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is the busiest shopping day of the year in the United States.

Zara is a Spanish company, but BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) activists have targeted it for its operations in Israel, which they say endorse the Jewish state’s policies toward the Palestinians. Zara has dozens of stores across Israel, and this year opened its largest branch in the country in the Big Fashion Glilot complex near Tel Aviv.

Zara briefly closed its Israel stores after the Hamas terror onslaught of October 7, 2023, but reopened shortly afterward.

The protests came as the election of Zohran Mamdani as the next mayor of New York earlier this month stoked fears that the city with the world’s largest Jewish population may become less safe for Jews.

‘International Day of Solidarity’

Separately, protesters took to the streets across Europe on Saturday as part of an “International Day of Solidarity” held every year on November 29, the day the UN General Assembly approved the partition plan for the Land of Israel in 1947.

Demonstrations were held in Rome, London, Paris, Athens and other cities around the continent.

As the Palestinian death toll in Israel’s war in Gaza rose to more than 70,000 people, according to Hamas health ministry figures, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Saturday that “the killing of so many civilians, the repeated displacement of an entire population and the obstruction of humanitarian aid should never be acceptable.”

The death toll figure does not differentiate between combatants and civilians, and cannot be independently verified.

In Paris, some 8,000 people marched from Place de la République to Place de la Nation, chanting, “Gaza, Gaza, Paris is with you” and waving Palestinian flags and signs reading, “Palestine: We will not be silenced.”

In Spain, demonstrators marched in 40 cities across the country, while in the UK, tens of thousands marched from London’s Green Park to Downing Street, according to media reports.

In Italy, strikes and protests on Friday against the government’s support for Israel and increased military spending caused the cancellation of dozens of flights and disrupted train services around the country.

The one-day action, called by the hardline USB union along with smaller worker organizations, was attended by UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian rights Francesca Albanese and Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

Antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiments have increased across the globe since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. Watchdogs in the US, UK, Italy and other countries have seen the number of incidents against Jews reach all-time highs.