Eduardo González/Luis Ayllón
Yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Spanish ambassador in Tel Aviv, Ana Salomon, and her Belgian colleague to convey a “harsh reprimand” to them for statements made by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Belgian Prime Minister. Alexander de Croo, at the Rafah crossing which, in his opinion, “are giving support to terrorism.” In response, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, described Israel’s accusations as “totally false and unacceptable” and summoned the Israeli ambassador, Rodica Radian-Gordon.
As reported by the Israeli Embassy in Spain in a statement broadcast on Whatsapp, “following the statements by the Prime Minister of Spain and the Prime Minister of Belgium in Rafah, Foreign Minister, Eli Cohen, instructed that the two countries’ ambassadors be summoned to the Foreign Ministry for a reprimand meeting.”
“We condemn the false claims of the Prime Ministers of Spain and Belgium who are giving support to terrorism,” declared Eli Cohen through the social network X. “Israel is acting according to international law and fighting a murderous terrorist organization worse than ISIS that commits war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he continued. “We will resume fighting after the ceasefire until the elimination of Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip and the release of all the abductees,” he announced.
In response to this message from Cohen, Spanish Government sources cited by the newspaper El País described the Israeli reaction as “unacceptable” and warned that the words spoken by Sánchez in Rafah were not harsher than those he himself transmitted the day before, in person, to the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who did not cause the same reaction. The same sources recalled that Sánchez condemned in Rafah the “terrible terrorist attacks by Hamas.”
During the press conference in Rafah, Pedro Sánchez declared: “I reiterate Israel’s right to defend itself, but within the parameters and limitations imposed by international humanitarian law. And that is not the case. The indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians, including thousands of children, is completely unacceptable. Violence will only lead to more violence. We have to replace violence with hope and peace.”
Likewise, he assured that Spain “will continue to demand a lasting ceasefire”, because “this ceasefire is a great step, but it is not enough, a permanent humanitarian ceasefire is needed.” “We have actively and passively requested a ceasefire from Israel. “We have had a clear-sighted position on the matter, the cessation of violence, the two-state solution and the entry of aid into Gaza,” he added. “Violence will only lead to more violence,” Sánchez warned. “We have to replace violence with hope, as I had the opportunity to say yesterday to President Herzog and Prime Minister Netanyahu,” he added.
At the same press conference, Pedro Sánchez once again asked that “the Palestinian people be offered a horizon of hope” through the two-state solution, warning that “both Israel and Palestine must be present” at the peace conference proposed by Spain and assured that if the EU does not recognize the Palestinian State, “Spain will make its own decisions.”
Albares: “Totally false and unacceptable”
For his part, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, described Israel’s accusations against Sánchez and De Croo as “totally false and unacceptable”, which are “especially serious because it is the president of the Government who represents the presidency of the EU in office and the prime minister who represents the country that will occupy the presidency from January 1.”
“From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs we are analyzing the timely response that we are going to give and there will be a response to these false, misplaced and unacceptable accusations,” Albares announced in statements to the press. Hours later, the minister announced that the Government had summoned the Israeli ambassador to Spain, Rodica Radian-Gordon.
“Since October 7, the President of the Government, myself, the entire Government of Spain did not hesitate to condemn the terrorist attack by Hamas and to make it very clear that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people and is only a terrorist organization,” he continued.
“The President of the Government has expressed it in Israel, he has also expressed solidarity with all the Israeli victims and I want to remember the two Spanish victims, Maya (Villalobo) and Iván (Illarramendi), who will always be in our memory,” Albares continued. . “We have always asked for the unconditional and immediate release of all the hostages, without distinction of nationality or religion, and this is also what the president has transferred to one of the kibbuts that were victims of that terrorist attack,” he added.
“We have always stressed Israel’s right to defend itself from this terrorist attack,” but “this is not incompatible with the message that we have been repeating since day one, and that the President of the Government has also conveyed on his trip to Israel, to Palestine. , to the Middle East, and that right to defend oneself must be done within scrupulous respect for International Humanitarian Law,” declared the minister.
Barcelona
On the other hand, the Israeli Embassy in Spain “strongly” condemned the resolution approved yesterday in the plenary session of the Barcelona City Council to suspend relations with the Government of Israel. “In these difficult times for Israel, after the massacre perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on October 7, this decision is a new episode of the anti-Israeli attitude of the Barcelona City Council,” declared the Embassy in a press release. “This unjustifiable statement only benefits Hamas and whitewashes its barbarity,” he continued. “We are very aware that Barcelona City Council has not condemned the brutal murders or kidnappings of children, mothers, the elderly and innocent civilians,” he concluded.
Yesterday, Barcelona City Council approved a resolution, with the votes of the Party of Socialists of Catalonia (PSC), Comuns and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), to interrupt its institutional relations with the Government of Israel until there is an end to the final fire in the Gaza Strip and UN resolutions are complied with. The previous government team, headed by Ada Colau, broke relations with Israel and suspended the twinning of Barcelona with Tel Aviv. The PSC then opposed the measure, considering it a “very serious error.”
