<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares stated this Thursday that, "at this time," he is not "considering" recalling the Spanish ambassador to Israel, Ana Sálomon, for consultations.</strong></h4> "No, not something that we are currently considering," Albares declared in Washington at the end of his meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, after both Yolanda Díaz, the second vice president of the Spanish government and leader of Sumar (a minority party in the coalition government), and Ernest Urtasun, the Minister of Culture and Sumar spokesperson, demanded this Thursday the withdrawal, or at least the recall, of the ambassador to Tel Aviv in protest of the military offensive in Gaza. “What must be made clear is our absolute rejection, our outright condemnation, of the military offensive currently underway in Gaza,” Albares continued. “There is no military objective at this time, within this military offensive, that justifies it. Everything we see is beyond bearable, and we all have to do something,” he added. “60,000 Palestinians dead are more than enough, and we have to do everything in our power to break the blockade, so that humanitarian aid reaches the people of Gaza.” Last Monday, the European Commission announced its intention to review the Association Agreement between the EU and Israel due to violations of the human rights clause. According to Albares, "the urgent need yesterday (Wednesday) was to summon, as happened today at ten (in the morning), the chargé d'affaires (of the Israeli Embassy, Dan Poraz) to convey that we expect a transparent investigation and clarification of responsibilities" into the Israeli army's shooting at a diplomatic delegation in the West Bank, among whose members was a member of the Spanish Consulate General in Jerusalem. <h5><strong>Yolanda Díaz</strong></h5> Yolanda Díaz urged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this Thursday to recall the Spanish ambassador to Israel and to adopt economic sanctions against Benjamin Netanyahu's regime, in the same way it has done with Russia since the invasion of Ukraine. Speaking to the press during the opening of Working for Diversity 2025, Díaz described the "live genocide" taking place in the Gaza Strip, which has caused a "massacre" of more than 50,000 people, as "unacceptable," and called for Spain to take a more forceful stance against the "genocidal state" of Israel. For his part, Ernest Urtasun has been even more forceful, urging, in statements to TV3, an "escalation" of diplomatic pressure on Israel by recalling the Spanish ambassador, urgently approving Sumar's legislative proposal to establish a total embargo on the sale of arms from Israel, and suspending the EU trade agreement with Tel Aviv, since "blocking the entry of Israeli capital and investments into the European Union, as well as the trade of goods, would be an effective pressure measure with very significant effects." <h5><strong>Murder of two Israelis in the US</strong></h5> Meanwhile, José Manuel Albares condemned the murder of two employees of the Israeli Embassy in Washington on Thursday and warned that "nothing justifies antisemitism or this act of barbarism." "I have just landed in Washington, and I have received the terrible news of the murder of two members of the Israeli Embassy in the US," Albares wrote on social media. “My strongest condemnation and solidarity with the families of the victims and the people of Israel. Nothing justifies antisemitism or this barbaric act,” added the minister, who is in the United States capital to meet with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio also condemned “with the utmost firmness the murder of two employees of the Israeli Embassy in Washington,” which represents “a brazen act of cowardly and antisemitic violence.” “Make no mistake: we will find those responsible and bring them to justice,” he concluded. For her part, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, joined the multitude of voices condemning the murder of the two Israeli embassy employees. “There is no place, and there should be no place, in our societies, for hatred, extremism, or antisemitism,” she wrote on social media. Two Israeli Embassy employees in the United States, a man and a woman, were shot and killed Wednesday night outside the Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., where an American Jewish Committee (AJC) event was being held. The alleged shooter, identified as "Elías Rodríguez, of Chicago, Illinois," fired the shots shouting "Free Palestine" and is in custody. The news was announced by Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, who specified that the shooting occurred overnight near the Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. The Israeli Foreign Ministry identified the victims as Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim and denounced the "brutal terrorist attack" that claimed their lives.
