Government denies the stopover in Algeciras of two ships with weapons for Israel after the complaint from Sumar

Eduardo González The Government has assured that it will not allow “any ship” carrying military material bound for Israel to stopover in Spain, including two ships from the United States whose imminent arrival in Algeciras has been reported by Sumar to the Attorney General's Office. Last Tuesday, the spokesman for IU in the Congress of Deputies and member of the Sumar Parliamentary Group, Enrique Santiago, filed a complaint with the Attorney General's Office for the alleged passage through Algeciras of more than a thousand ships from the United States loaded with weapons for Israel, which "clearly contravenes the agreements taken by our Government to eliminate any type of collaboration in the shipment of weapons to Israel, the purchase or sale of weapons," as he himself declared in a video released by IU on social networks. He also asked the Attorney General's Office "to investigate and also to take measures against the possible arrival, on the next 9th and 14th of November, of two new cargo ships from the United States bound for Israel that in principle were going to make transit in Algeciras." In this regard, official sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs assured The Diplomat on Thursday that "no ship, including those, if it carries military material, will stop in Spain." The sources referred specifically to the ships ‘Maersk Denver’, which left New York on October 31 and was scheduled to stop in Algeciras on November 8; and ‘Maersk Seletar’, which left New York on November 4 and was scheduled to stop at the same dock on November 14. “Another victory: the ships ‘Maersk Denver’ and ‘Maersk Seletar’ will not dock in Algeciras,” Enrique Santiago declared this Thursday through his account on the social network X. “Our parliamentary question and successive complaints to the Prosecutor’s Office are forcing the Government to strictly comply with the agreement not to allow the shipment or transit of weapons bound for Israel,” he added. Specifically, Santiago refers to the written parliamentary question registered past Monday by him and other Sumar deputies in which they urge the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to "confirm whether there were at least 25 journeys from the US with military cargo between May and September of this year 2024 that stopped at the port of Algeciras, before continuing on to Israel to deliver it." They also demand that, if so, he indicate the reason for the "flagrant contradiction" with the statements of the Minister of Foreign Affairs himself, José Manuel Albares, in May 2024 regarding this issue, in which he assured that he would prohibit ships loaded with military material destined for Israel from docking in his ports. The registered text also asks “how many ships have docked in Algeciras since October 7, 2023 with supplies or military material destined for Israel” and “what specific material these ships have carried”, if their cargo has been thoroughly inspected” and “who or what body authorized their docking and subsequent departure”. In addition, the Sumar parliamentarian presented a written question at the end of October in which he warned - based on information from the website of the port of Valencia - of the stopover in Spain of two ships from the Israeli company Zim (the ‘Zim Ningbo’ and the ‘Zim Yangtze’) and urged the Government to clarify whether “it can confirm” that these ships were not transporting “military weapons destined for Israel”. He also asked whether “the Government's plans include the development of a cargo registration protocol for those ships destined for Israel”. The Government has repeatedly stated that since October 7 last year, no arms sales to Israel have been approved, nor has it authorized the port of call at Spanish ports of ships transporting arms to the Middle East. This is not the first time that a ship has been denied a port of call for this reason: last May, the Government denied the port of call in Cartagena (Murcia) of the ‘Marianne Danica’, a Danish-flagged ship that set sail from Madras (India) bound for Haifa (Israel) loaded with 26.8 tons of explosives. Last May, the two partners in the coalition government, PSOE and Sumar, had a serious clash over the accusations made by the party led by Vice President Yolanda Díaz (and by the former coalition partner, Podemos) regarding the alleged arrival in Spain of another ship supposedly loaded with weapons for Israel. The socialist part of the Executive claimed that the ship, which finally decided to dock elsewhere, was not heading to Israel and accused both parties of spreading “rumors”.

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