From “Muslim Invasion” to “Free Ceuta:” How Did a Migration Crisis Become a Cross-Border Campaign?

The crossing of thousands of migrants into Ceuta did not remain a local Spanish crisis for long. Within days, videos and images flooded social media platforms, and the discussion grew to more than 10 million posts involving some 2.5 million accounts. The incident soon became political material exploited by far-right networks to attack migrants, Muslims and the government of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

From Spain to France, Germany, Britain and the United States, political, media and anonymous accounts recast the incident as a “Muslim invasion” threatening Europe, as they described it. At the same time, Israeli and pro-Israel accounts invoked rhetoric associated with the war on Gaza, promoting slogans such as “All Eyes on Ceuta” and “Free Ceuta.” In a counterappropriation of slogans expressing solidarity with Palestinians, the campaign targeted Sánchez’s government over its stance on Israel’s war on Gaza.

In this report, Misbar’s team at Al Araby TV analyzed the digital campaign, which generated more than 10 million posts over two weeks about the Ceuta incident. The team traced its spread, languages and the declared geographic locations of participating accounts. It also examined the most widely circulated hashtags and narratives, mapped interaction networks and analyzed a sample of high-volume accounts to identify indicators of amplification.

Patterns of Engagement

The engagement curve rose gradually as striking footage of migrants crossing into Ceuta spread, before peaking at nearly 3 million posts in a single day, compared with an average of no more than 32,000 daily posts on July 27 and 28.

The gap points to a sharp shift in both the volume and nature of the discussion, coinciding with the involvement of influential political accounts and high-volume posting networks. However, the digital spike alone is insufficient to establish coordination without supporting patterns of synchronized posting, repeated content and shared links.

Over the two-week period, the volume of circulated content exceeded 10 million posts, generated or shared by approximately 2.5 million accounts. This reflects the transformation of a local border incident into an issue of international political polarization. According to the content classification used for the sample, discourse attacking migrants and the Spanish government accounted for nearly half of the posts and involved around 1.5 million accounts.

An analysis of account handles, biographies and symbols showed the prominence of Spanish far-right networks, particularly accounts associated with the far-right Vox party, alongside accounts using the Spanish flag and slogans such as “Spain Above All.”

The sphere of engagement also expanded to include networks from the European, British and American right, which identified themselves through flags, religious symbols and political slogans, most notably “MAGA.”

Israeli and pro-Israel accounts that had previously participated in campaigns targeting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez over his position on Israel’s war on Gaza also emerged prominently in the discussion.

The distribution of languages corresponded with the reach of these networks. Spanish ranked first, reflecting the location of the incident in Ceuta, followed by English, French, German and Italian.

This linguistic diversity, combined with the declared geographic locations of accounts and the structure of the interaction network, indicates that anti-migrant and anti-Muslim narratives moved between right-wing circles in several countries, where the incident was used to attack Sánchez’s government and the European left.

The geographic distribution of users’ declared locations showed that Spain accounted for 51% of the posts, followed by the United States at 18%, France at 8% and Britain at 4%. Germany and Argentina each accounted for 2%, while Mexico represented 1%.

This reach shows that the discussion extended beyond Spain, spreading into political circles across Europe and the Americas, where the incident was repurposed within a broader discourse targeting migrants, Muslims and the European left.

Networks and Influential Accounts

An analysis of the interaction network revealed the formation of several overlapping clusters, divided primarily along linguistic and political lines. The network included politicians and figures associated with the far right, as well as media and anonymous accounts connected through reposting content and circulating the same narratives. The analysis identified the following groups:

Far-Right Networks

Influential right-wing accounts participated in attacks on migrants, Muslims, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his left-wing government. They promoted rhetoric calling for stricter border measures and mobilized support for Spanish right-wing forces, particularly Vox.

Prominent figures within the English-language network included Tommy Robinson, Visegrád 24, Inevitable West, Eric Daugherty and Radio Genoa.

In the Spanish-language network, prominent accounts included David Santos, Anonymous Tabarnia, Taleb Alisalem, Santiago Abascal and Vito Quiles.

The French-language network included Jean de Lorraine, Fdesouche and Wolf, as well as politicians Marion Maréchal and Éric Zemmour.

In the German-speaking cluster, prominent accounts included Georg Pazderski, Alice Weidel, Mirro, COXX and Hermann Tertsch.

Israeli Accounts Invoke Gaza Rhetoric

The engagement of Israeli and pro-Israel accounts followed a different path, using the incident to attack Sánchez and his government over their position on Israel’s war on Gaza.

The interactions also revealed a public disagreement between Israeli officials. Dana Erlich, Israel’s chargé d’affaires in Madrid, rejected remarks by Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, who described Spain’s presence in Ceuta and Melilla as settler colonialism.

At the same time, Israeli and pro-Israel accounts promoted the slogan “All Eyes on Ceuta,” echoing the “All Eyes on Rafah” slogan that spread during the war on Gaza. They also used the phrase “Free Ceuta,” in a parallel to pro-Palestinian chants.

A number of accounts participated in promoting this narrative, including Eli David, Josh Wolf, Yair Netanyahu and The Mustached.

Accounts Exhibiting Suspicious Behavior

An examination of accounts involved in amplifying the hostile discourse revealed patterns warranting further scrutiny, including the absence of clear identities, recently created accounts, limited follower counts and the intensive, repeated posting of the same phrases.

None of these indicators alone constitutes evidence that an account is automated or part of an organized network. However, their combination across a large number of accounts, alongside a single wave of posting, raises the possibility that the spread of the content was artificially amplified rather than entirely the result of organic engagement.

The pattern was particularly evident in the promotion of the phrases “Free Ceuta” and “All Eyes on Ceuta,” with an analysis of their repetition revealing the widespread circulation of identical or highly similar formulations.

This similarity reduces the likelihood that the posts were entirely independent and spontaneous expressions, particularly when they originated from recently created or low-follower accounts within closely timed intervals.

It also suggests that the role of some of these accounts may not have been to directly reach a large audience, but rather to increase the volume of content and repeatedly push the two phrases into the broader public discussion.

Nearly 343,000 accounts participated in publishing hostile content within the sample, indicating that the amplification did not rely solely on a limited number of influential accounts but extended through a broad base of small and medium-sized accounts.

That figure does not mean that all of these accounts were automated or coordinated, nor does it establish that a single entity operated them. However, it does reveal intensive participation that contributed to increasing the visibility of the hostile discourse and pushing it to the forefront of the discussion surrounding Ceuta.

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