BDS urges global boycott of ZARA over ‘complicity in Gaza genocide’

WEB DESK: The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the broadest Palestinian coalition leading the global BDS movement, has called for boycotting ZARA — the flagship brand of the Spanish multinational Inditex — for what it said, “its deep and growing complicity in Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid, and genocide of Palestinians.”

“We call on people of conscience around the world to boycott ZARA for its deep and growing complicity in Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid, and genocide,” the BDS said in a press release.

“At the start of 2025, amid Israel’s ongoing genocidal assault on Palestinians in Gaza, ZARA opened its largest-ever store in Israel — a 4,500 m² flagship in the Big Fashion Glilot complex near Tel Aviv. This expansion deepens ZARA’s economic ties with Israel, where the brand already operates dozens of stores. It comes at a time when Israel’s genocidal regime is carrying out mass killings, forced displacement, and the destruction of Palestinian cultural life with full impunity,” the statement said.

“Israel’s attack on Gaza has, to date, killed an undercount of over 80,000 Palestinians and has obliterated the Strip’s healthcare and education systems, devastating its social, cultural, and economic fabric, deliberately inflicting conditions of life in Gaza calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians.”

It said that ZARA’s complicity with Israel’s regime of oppression runs deeper still. In October 2022, Joey Schwebel, chair of Trimera Brands, ZARA’s Israeli franchisee, hosted a campaign event at his home for far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has openly called for the expulsion of Palestinians, the shooting of civilians, and the denial of humanitarian aid to Gaza, was cited in the International Court of Justice’s case, which found that Israel is plausibly committing genocide. Following the event, Ben-Gvir praised ZARA, tweeting: “ZARA, beautiful clothes, beautiful Israelis.”

In June 2021,, it said, ZARA Woman’s then-head designer, Vanessa Perilman, launched a racist tirade against Palestinians in Instagram messages to Palestinian model Qaher Harhash. ZARA responded with a weak public statement distancing itself from the remarks but took no meaningful action or accountability.

In December 2023, ZARA released an offensive ad campaign titled “The Jacket,” depicting mannequins wrapped in white shrouds next to crumbled statues, imagery eerily similar to that of shrouded Palestinian bodies seen daily in Israel’s livestreamed genocide in Gaza. Following international outrage, ZARA removed the ad and issued a hollow “apology,” stating it “regretted the misunderstanding,” while doing nothing to address its deep business ties to Israel’s apartheid regime.

ZARA and Inditex have remained silent on Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s cultural sector and 4,000-year-old cultural heritage. They have said nothing about the killing of Palestinian fashion and textile figures, including Israel’s assassination of renowned designer Walaa al-Afranji, founder of Fashion Room by Walaa, along with her husband in Nuseirat refugee camp in December 2024. At the same time, ZARA chose Israeli model Sun Mizrahi to front its global campaign in 2024, whitewashing Israel’s crimes by glamorizing its image during a genocide. Commenting on ZARA’s campaign, a spokesperson for Mizrahi said that “[she] is happy to be the Israeli face so identified with our country around the world, especially in such times.”

Inditex’s complicity in human rights violations extends beyond Palestine. The company has been linked to abusive labour conditions in Brazil, and to allegations of workers’ rights violations in Myanmar, forcing the company to quit the country after a public pressure campaign. These cases form part of a wider pattern of Inditex’s failure to uphold basic rights across its global supply chains.

​​As highlighted in a legal analysis by Dr Irene Pietropaoli for SOMO and Al-Haq, executives of corporations worldwide can be held legally accountable for complicity in Israel’s genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.

The report warns: “Companies also risk complicity in the Israeli government’s violations even just by carrying out their business activities in the country and contributing to the wider economy, for example, and paying taxes to a government that is committing genocide. Silent or tacit complicity, as detailed below, is apparent when a company does not directly contribute to or benefit from the genocide but is aware of it and fails to distance itself from it – assuming there is still a close link with the situation, for example a company that carry business in Israel and pay taxes to the Israeli government.” ZARA and Inditex executives must take heed: continued operations and partnerships in apartheid Israel may not only cost its business, they may carry legal consequences.”

Inditex owns ZARA, Massimo Dutti, Pull & Bear, Bershka, Oysho, Stradivarius, and ZARA Home. While all operate in apartheid Israel, ZARA is Inditex’s most prominent and strategically marketed brand.

The BDS movement called on workers, artists, students, trade unions, human rights defenders, and ethical consumers around the world to boycott ZARA, and pressure Inditex to end its complicity in Israel’s crimes and withdraw its operations from apartheid Israel.