More than 700 police will be deployed to Valencia, Spain on Wednesday for a basketball match between the local team and Maccabi Tel Aviv, amid tensions in the Middle East.
Valencia Basketball Club announced that police and security presence will be upped for the “high risk” match and that attendees will undergo “more exhaustive security checks”.
“We have put in place a total operation where more than 700 national police will be working undercover and in uniform,” said the Delegate for Valencia Pilar Bernabe at a press conference.
“I would also like to ask supporters (…) to demonstrate patience as access will be delayed,” Bernabe said.
The EuroLeague match scheduled for Wednesday evening will take place amidst tensions sparked across Europe from the war between Israel and Hamas.
More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel, mostly civilians, from Hamas’s attack launched on October 7.
Retaliatory airstrikes from Israel have killed more than 3,000 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly civilians, according to local authorities.
Spain’s interior ministry has announced a series of “additional” security measures in relation to the conflict, despite Madrid choosing to keep its anti-terrorism alert unchanged at four-out-of-five, corresponding to a “high” risk.
