Spanish police clashed with Marseille fans ahead of the Champions League match between the French club and Real Madrid on Tuesday.
The confrontation began as the fans waited to get into Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu Stadium before the game.
Police in riot gear and horse-riding officers used batons to disperse the French supporters as they apparently tried to move out of the spot allocated for them as they waited outside the Bernabeu gates. A few thousand French fans were expected for the match.
The situation was controlled quickly, and the fans entered the stadium in time for the match.
Bernabeu security personnel did not allow fans to enter the stadium with Palestinian flags, enforcing a policy that was in place even before pro-Palestinian protests made headlines for disrupting the Spanish Vuelta cycling race this weekend. The flags were confiscated from fans who tried to enter with them.
The anti-Israel protests disrupted several stages of the three-week-long Vuelta.
Protesters, who demanded that team Israel Premier Tech be expelled from the Grand Tour event, threw barriers onto the road and clashed with police on Sunday to keep the final stage from being completed as originally planned.
Spain’s government has been a fierce critic of Israel’s 23-month war in Gaza, which was triggered by the Hamas terror group killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 during its October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Sunday called Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez a “disgrace to Spain” for what he characterized as the incitement of a mob against the bike race. He also noted the Spanish leader’s remark days earlier, “that he did not have an atomic bomb ‘to stop Israel.’”
The director of the Vuelta race defended his decision to keep an Israel-based team in the competition despite the anti-Israel protests, while Spanish opposition figures and Madrid’s conservative mayor rejected Sanchez’s endorsement of the protests, calling the chaos an “international embarrassment” and a sad day for the capital city.