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The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the broadest Palestinian coalition leading the global BDS movement, officially endorses the grassroots, organic campaign to boycott ZARA. We call on people of conscience around the world to boycott ZARA, the flagship brand of the Spanish multinational Inditex, for its deep and growing complicity in Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid, and genocide.
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. 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.
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. 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, 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, and is therefore the primary focus of the strategic BDS boycott campaign.
The BDS movement calls 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.
ZARA has chosen to side with genocide. Boycott ZARA until it ends its criminal complicity.
Protesters stage sit-in inside Zara Glasgow in solidarity with Gaza
Members of the Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee occupied Zara on Buchanan Street in solidarity with Gaza.
The action is part of a wider boycott campaign against the fashion giant, led by the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and supported by the protest group, which accuses Zara of “complicity in genocide” through its continued business ties with Israel.
The Palestinian BDS National Committee said: “We call on people of conscience around the world to boycott Zara, the flagship brand of the Spanish multinational Inditex, for its deep and growing complicity in Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid, and genocide.”
Campaigners say Zara is financially supporting the Israeli government by operating stores in the country, thereby contributing through taxation to what they describe as “Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians in Gaza”
The BDS National Committee said: “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.”
Elsewhere in its statement, the committee highlighted past allegations against Zara, including an offensive 2023 advertising campaign that was later withdrawn following widespread public backlash.
Protesters are calling for a total boycott of Zara until the company withdraws from the Israeli market.
Our GGEC BDS team on Buchanan Street today, protesting inside and outside Zara! https://t.co/faasRSM93i Boycott ZARA: Dressing Up Apartheid and Genocide https://t.co/Y9kM4aEJrd
— GGEC (@ggectee) July 15, 2026
The protest in Glasgow is part of a wider global campaign targeting Inditex for what activists call a “failure to uphold basic rights across its global supply chains,” with additional references to alleged labour abuses in Brazil and Myanmar.
BDS also cited a legal analysis by Dr Irene Pietropaoli, which warned that companies could be “held legally accountable” for complicity in human rights abuses, including “silent or tacit complicity” through continued commercial operations in a country accused of genocide.
The statement said: “Silent or tacit complicity… 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.”
Zara workers to protest outside Spanish stores after record profit
Workers at Zara owner Inditex’ stores plan to protest in eight major Spanish cities on Friday to demand better benefits after the fashion giant reported record profits and raised shareholder payouts, unions said on Monday.
Inditex shares hit a record high after it reported positive early spring sales and a record annual profit last week, and said it would boost its dividend payout by 28%.
“We are happy with Inditex’s results, but having seen them, they can’t make excuses to the workers and need to discuss more benefits,” said Alvaro Cajigal, leader of the UGT union.
Spain’s two largest unions, UGT and CCOO have called on shop workers in Inditex’s home country to gather outside Zara and Bershka stores in cities including Madrid, Barcelona and Seville at midday on Friday.
CCOO union leader Lucia Trenor said union representatives and workers will gather for an hour and will do so outside of their regular shifts, so shops will work as normal.
“There will be no shop closures during the demonstrations,” she told Reuters.
The unions want the company behind the Zara brand to offer more hours for part-time employees and a minimum number of weekends off a year for all staff. UGT also wants seniority bonuses to start after four years of service, as the company is discussing offering a benefit based on experience, so they can reach the majority of workers.
Union and Inditex representatives will meet on Tuesday. The company declined to comment on the union’s actions.
Last year, the company increased wages for its around 28,000 shop workers in Spain by around 20%. Globally, wages of 161,281 Inditex employees rose by 9% in 2023, reaching an annual average of 28,726 euros ($31,274), according to its annual report.
In Spain, the company has also agreed to an average 3.5% pay rise for its shop workers this year and to renew a one-off bonus of 1,000 euros.
Zara shop workers protest outside Spanish stores after record profit
Workers from Zara, Bershka and other clothing stores owned by fashion giant Inditex protested outside their shops across Spain on Friday to demand better conditions after the group reported record profits and raised shareholder payouts.
Outside the flagship Bershka store on Madrid’s iconic Gran Via boulevard, demonstrators, mainly women, shouted: “That much profit is our sacrifice,” among other slogans. Other protests were held in seven cities including Barcelona and Seville.
“Inditex is the company with the highest profits (in the sector) and if you want the workers to be well off, those profits have to be shared,” said Carolina Albarran, 50, who has worked at Zara for 33 years.
Inditex shares hit a record high after it reported a 5.4 billion euros annual profit last week, and said it would boost its dividend payout by 28%.
Zara and its sister brands such as Stradivarius and Massimo Dutti employ 28,000 shopworkers in Spain, the company’s home market, which accounted for 14.8% of its 36 billion euros ($38.94 billion) worth of sales in the year to January 2024.
Spain’s two main trade unions, UGT and CCOO, backed the protests in the run-up to the Easter holidays. The shops stayed open as usual while workers gathered outside their regular shift hours.
Inditex declined to comment, but a union leader showed a letter from the company expressing interest in discussing the demands of all shop workers in April.
The unions want the retailer to offer more hours for part-time employees and a minimum number of weekends off a year for all staff, an extra bonus for workers with more than four years’ service and other benefits.
Last year, Inditex increased wages for shopworkers in Spain by around 20%, and it has agreed to renew a one-off bonus of 1,000 euros this year. Globally, salaries of 161,281 Inditex employees rose by 9% in 2023, reaching an average of 28,726 euros per year, according to its annual report.
