<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>A total of 21 of the 49 Spaniards from the Global Sumud Flotilla, including former mayor Ada Colau, arrived this Sunday at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport on a flight from Tel Aviv managed and paid for by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.</strong></h4> The departure of the Spaniards was announced hours earlier by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares. Among the repatriated Spaniards, in addition to Ada Colau, was Jordi Coronas, a member of the ERC party in Barcelona City Council. However, the three Podemos representatives who were traveling on the Flotilla, Lucía Muñoz, Serigne Mbayé, and Alejandra Martínez, did not travel on this flight. They refused to sign, as a condition of extradition, a document from the Israeli authorities confessing to having entered the exclusion zone illegally. “There are still people illegally kidnapped, including three Podemos members who are on a hunger strike. We demand that the government sever relations with Israel now,” declared Podemos leader Ione Belarra. Ministry sources specified that “The Foreign Ministry has negotiated and facilitated the transfer of the Spaniards who voluntarily requested it, offering them seats on this Sunday's flight to Madrid, with tickets purchased by the ministry itself to expedite their departure.” The Spaniards were received at the airport by the Undersecretary and the Director General of Consular Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to the same sources, who reiterated that “The Foreign Ministry has mobilized all its consular and diplomatic resources to provide continuous and uninterrupted protection to the Spaniards aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla” and that, “from day one, the consulates in Cairo, Nicosia, and Tel Aviv have been active.” For her part, Health Minister Mónica García told the '24 Horas' channel that her department will offer medical assistance to the 21 repatriated Spaniards to "assess any damage they may have suffered." According to the Foreign Ministry, after the arrest and subsequent transfer of the Spaniards to land, the Spanish consul in Tel Aviv, along with other members of the embassy, traveled to the port of Ashdod to care for them. The consul, the sources continued, established direct contact with the Spaniards as soon as the Israeli authorities allowed him access to the detention center, "and has done so every day that the Israeli side has allowed him access, without exception." "His instructions are to continue doing so every day until the last Spaniard leaves Israel," they added. “The Consul, along with the Consular Emergency Unit, has also been in telephone contact with the families, providing them with the available information. The Consul has also been in contact with the families' on-site lawyer, with whom he met on Thursday, October 2, at the entrance to the port of Ashdod, waiting for the Spaniards to disembark. He was also with her on Friday, October 3, when the Consul spent the entire day at Ktziot Prison. This Sunday, they met again at the same center,” they concluded.
