<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares held a telephone conversation on Tuesday with the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Palestine, Mohammad Mustafa, with whom he again addressed the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and to whom he reiterated Spain's support for the two-state solution.</strong></h4> “I have spoken with my counterpart from Palestine, Mohammad Mustafa,” the minister declared through his official account on the social network X. “He has thanked Spain for its firm position,” he continued. “I have condemned the attacks against civilians and infrastructure,” he continued. “We must urgently address the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” Albares added. “I have reiterated support for the two-state solution,” he concluded. <div class="lRu31" dir="ltr"><span class="HwtZe" lang="en"><span class="jCAhz ChMk0b"><span class="ryNqvb">Albares later had another telephone conversation with his Lebanese counterpart, Abdallah Bou Habib, to whom he condemned “the continued attacks on the country, which is causing a serious humanitarian crisis,” and the attacks on the UN mission, UNIFIL, “which works for peace.”</span></span> <span class="jCAhz ChMk0b"><span class="ryNqvb">“International law and resolution 1701 must be respected,” he added, via the same social network.</span></span></span> <div class="OvtS8d"></div> <div id="ow37">The conversation with Mustafa came after Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right, declared this past Monday, while chairing a meeting of the Religious Zionism party in the Israeli Knesset (Parliament), that 2025 will be the year of “Israeli sovereignty” over the West Bank.</div> </div> In response to these words, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has “strongly condemned the recent statements and calls by several Israeli leaders to impose what they call ‘sovereignty’ over the occupied West Bank,” which represent “a blatantly colonial and racist extension of the ongoing campaign of extermination and forced displacement against the Palestinian people” and demonstrate “a flagrant disregard for international legitimacy and consensus, especially on the two-state solution.” The ministry added that “the international community’s prolonged failure to implement UN resolutions on the Palestinian cause, coupled with inaction to stop Israel’s campaign of destruction, has emboldened Israel’s ruling right to escalate its systematic war crimes and grave violations aimed at erasing the Palestinian cause and eroding the prospects for a two-state solution.” Therefore, it “urgently calls for a determined response from the United States and the world community, advocating for a decisive UN Security Council resolution to grant the State of Palestine full membership in the United Nations, order an immediate end to Israel’s campaign of extermination and establish binding mechanisms to enforce the General Assembly resolution and the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice.” For his part, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, expressed his “unequivocal condemnation” of these words, which represent “a clear step towards the illegal annexation” of the occupied territory. “This rhetoric undermines international law, violates the rights of Palestinians and threatens the possibility of a two-state solution,” he added. Albares had a previous telephone conversation with Mustafa in early April this year, shortly after being appointed Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs by the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and almost two months before Spain officially recognised the State of Palestine on 28 May. Mohammad Mustafa was in Spain on 13 September, within the framework of the so-called “Madrid Meeting: for the implementation of two States”, in which the European Union, members of the Arab-Islamic Contact Group on Gaza and the European countries that have recognised the State of Palestine participated. The meeting, held at the ministerial headquarters of the Santa Cruz Palace, concluded with the adoption of the so-called “Madrid Declaration”, in which the ministers reiterate their joint commitment to the implementation of the two-state solution as “the only way to establish lasting peace and security”.
