Majorca had long been one of Spain's regions least touched by ETA's campaign. The separatist organization had operated on the island before -- a bomb deactivated near a seafront walk in 1977, two small explosions in Palma in 1991, a foiled assassination plot against King Juan Carlos I in 1995 -- but it had never killed anyone there. The attack on July 30 changed that. It came on the eve of the 50th anniversary of ETA's founding and just days before the king's annual summer visit to the island. The timing was deliberate, calculated to generate maximum attention during peak tourist season. A second limpet bomb was found under another Civil Guard vehicle at a nearby barracks and was safely detonated by police.

Within hours of the bombing, the Civil Guard and National Police launched the largest manhunt in Majorcan history. Checkpoints went up across the island. Palma de Mallorca Airport closed at 4:00 pm and did not reopen until 5:55 pm. Ports were temporarily shut down. At least 1,600 police officers fanned out across the island, checking vehicles, stopping fishing boats, searching hotels. The operation was modeled on lockdowns used after previous attacks on the Spanish mainland, including the 2004 Madrid train bombings. Authorities believed the bombers remained on the island, waiting for the situation to cool before attempting to leave. The intensive search continued through mid-August, though the attackers had likely already slipped away.

The violence did not end on July 30. On August 9 -- the same day ETA officially claimed responsibility for the killings -- four more bombs exploded across Palma, targeting restaurants and a shopping center. ETA made three warning calls beforehand, each giving contradictory details about the bombs' locations, and police were unable to evacuate the targeted sites in time. The devices contained small amounts of explosive and caused no injuries, but the message was unmistakable: the organization could strike at will in the tourist capital of the Balearic Islands. The bombing in Palma Nova was ETA's deadliest attack on Spanish soil since two undercover Civil Guard officers had been shot in Capbreton, France, in December 2007.

The investigation moved slowly across borders. On August 25, a suspected bomber was identified. On October 11, Joanes Larretxea was arrested in the south of France, and the operation uncovered nearly a ton of explosives hidden in twelve small caches across the country. On January 10, 2010, Iratxe Yanez Ortiz was arrested near the Spanish-Portuguese border in a van containing ten kilograms of explosives, two pistols, a rifle, and bomb-making materials. She was extradited to Spain that October. The Palma Nova bombing would prove to be among ETA's last lethal attacks. The organization declared a permanent ceasefire in 2011 and formally dissolved in 2018. Carlos Saenz de Tejada Garcia was buried in Burgos, where some of his own relatives had been injured in another ETA bombing just the day before his death.