Zara drops ad campaign after Gaza boycott calls

Fashion brand Zara has removed an ad campaign from its website and app home pages for evoking imagery of thousands of Palestinians killed by the Israeli regime in Gaza since October.

Zara said on Tuesday that it regretted the matter and dropped the advertisements that had sparked international calls by pro-Palestinian activists for a boycott and protests outside the Spanish-owned clothing stores.

Reports said pro-Palestine supporters left tens of thousands of complaints about the advertisements on Zara’s Instagram account, saying the images resembled photos of corpses in white shrouds in Gaza.

“#BoycottZara” trended on messaging platform X, formerly Twitter.

“Unfortunately, some customers felt offended by these images, which have now been removed, and saw in them something far from what was intended when they were created,” Zara said in an Instagram post.

The photos in the advertisement campaign were used “with the sole purpose of showcasing craftmade garments in an artistic context,” it claimed.

“Zara regrets that misunderstanding and we reaffirm our deep respect towards everyone,” Zara added.

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On Monday, a group of pro-Palestine protesters had gathered in front of a Zara store in Tunisia’s capital Tunis, chanting and waving a Palestinian flag, a video posted on social media and verified by Reuters showed. One of the Zara store’s display windows had been splattered with red paint.

In Britain, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it had received 110 complaints about the Zara advertisement campaign saying the imagery referenced the war in Gaza and was offensive to them. “As Zara have now removed the ad, we won’t be taking any further action,” the ASA said in a statement.

Six posts showcasing the “Atelier” advertisement campaign photos were removed from Zara’s Instagram page. Zara had already pulled the photoshoot from its website and app home pages on Monday.

Zara's parent company, Inditex, said the photos had been deleted in all its platforms.

The “Atelier” collection includes six jackets and is one of Zara’s most expensive designs, ranging from around $220 for a wool blazer with knit sleeves to $799 for a studded leather jacket. The jackets are still for sale on Zara sites.

The advertisement designers claimed that they aimed to portray a sculpting studio in disarray, with shrouded mannequins, broken statues, and destroyed art pieces scattered around.

In one of the advertisements a model is pictured carrying a mannequin wrapped in white and another features a mannequin with no arms, all of which resembled photos of corpses in white shrouds in Gaza.

Major brands worldwide have been terminating their contracts with entities linked to the Israeli regime amid mounting pressure on Tel Aviv for its genocide of the defenseless Palestinians in Gaza.

The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution Tuesday calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Israeli regime's months-long genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

Gaza's Health Ministry says more than 18,205 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, while nearly 50,000 others wounded by the Zionist forces since Oct.7.

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