Sánchez announces nine measures to stop the “genocide” and Israel accuses him of being “anti-Semitic and corrupt”

Eduardo González On Monday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced nine measures to stop Israel's “genocide” in Gaza, including the ‘urgent’ adoption of a royal decree-law to impose an arms embargo on Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu's government has reacted by accusing the Spanish government of “anti-Semitism” and banning Vice President Yolanda Díaz and Minister Sira Rego from entering the country. “What Prime Minister Netanyahu presented in October 2023 as a military operation in response to the atrocious Hamas terrorist attacks has ended up becoming a new wave of illegal occupations, an unjustifiable attack against the Palestinian civilian population. An attack that the United Nations Special Rapporteur and most experts now describe as genocide,” Sánchez declared during an appearance at the Moncloa Palace. “The figures speak for themselves: 63,000 dead, 159,000 wounded, 250,000 people at risk of acute malnutrition, and almost two million people displaced from their homes, half of them minors,” he denounced. “This isn't self-defense, it's not even attacking. It's exterminating a defenseless people. It's breaking all the laws of humanitarian law, and yet the international community is failing to stop this tragedy, perhaps because the world's great powers have ended up stuck between indifference to a never-ending conflict and complicity with Prime Minister Netanyahu's government,” he lamented. “Therefore, the Government of Spain has decided to go a step further and immediately launch nine additional actions to stop the genocide in Gaza, to pursue its perpetrators, and to support the Palestinian population,” he announced. “These nine measures as a whole will be implemented immediately, adding to the many already adopted by the Spanish government over the last two years,” Sánchez declared. “We know that all these measures will not be enough to stop the invasion or the war crimes, but we hope that they will serve to add pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government, to alleviate some of the suffering that the Palestinian population is enduring and also so that the whole of Spanish society knows and feels that, in one of the most infamous episodes of the 21st century, their country, Spain, was on the right side of history,” he added. The measures include the urgent approval of a royal decree-law that legally consolidates the arms embargo on Israel, the prohibition of transit through Spanish ports for all ships carrying fuel destined for the Israeli Armed Forces, and the denial of entry into Spanish airspace for all aircraft carrying defense material destined for Israel. They also provide for a ban on entry into Spanish territory for all persons directly involved in genocide, human rights violations, and war crimes in the Gaza Strip, the importation of products from illegal settlements in the West Bank, and the limitation of consular services provided to Spanish citizens residing in illegal Israeli settlements to the minimum legally required assistance. Finally, the measures include strengthening support for the Palestinian Authority by increasing our personnel in the European Union's border assistance mission in Rafah and establishing new collaboration projects with the Palestinian Authority in the areas of agriculture, food security, and medical assistance, increasing Spain's contribution to UNRWA, the United Nations Refugee Agency, and increasing the humanitarian aid and cooperation budget for Gaza to €150 million next year, in 2026. In response to these measures, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described the Spanish government as “anti-Semitic” and declared that they are “a clear attempt by the corrupt Sánchez government to distract attention from serious corruption scandals.” He also announced that he would ban Vice President and Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz and Youth and Children's Minister Sira Rego from entering the country. “We are proud that a state that perpetrates genocide is banning Sira Rego and me from entering. We will continue to fight for the rights of the Palestinian people, whether Mr. Netanyahu likes it or not,” Díaz wrote on Bluesky.

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