Spanish basketball fans protest Israel during Baskonia vs. Maccabi Playtika game in EuroLeague

By Senhan Bolelli

MADRID (AA) - Spanish basketball fans on Thursday protested Israel for its attacks on Gaza.

During the Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz vs. Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv game in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague held in Spain, some sections of the crowd waved Palestinian flags while the Israeli team were on the court.

Baskonia, a club from Spain's Basque region, beat Maccabi Playtika 92-82 in a Round 25 game at their home Buesa Arena.

According to the top-tier EuroLeague, 8,057 fans watched this match.

Although police took security measures before the game, nearly 1,000 fans brought Palestinian flags at the Buesa Arena to protest Israel.

During the match, they displayed the Palestinian flags, unfurled "Free Palestine" banner and shouted slogans for a long time.

Fans at the venue shouted "Genocider Israel", "Murderer Israel", "Zionist state, terrorist state", "Maccabi out of Europe", and "Free Palestine" for a long time.

Maccabi Playtika, the six-time EuroLeague champions, is one of the signature teams of the tournament. The yellow-and-blue last won the EuroLeague title in 2014.

Israel has killed more than 27,000 people in the Gaza Strip in response to the Oct. 7 cross-border offensive by Hamas, which took the lives of 1,200 people and took 240 as hostages.

The military onslaught has caused mass displacement and destruction and created conditions for famine.

A temporary truce in November resulted in a seven-day pause in the fighting in exchange for the release of more than 100 hostages by Hamas and about 240 Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel.