Eduardo González
Foreign Affairs Minister José Manuel Albares told Congress on Wednesday that US President Donald Trump’s proposal to evict the Palestinian population from the Gaza Strip is “unacceptable.”
“The proposal to displace the population of Gaza from their land is not only unacceptable from a moral point of view,” but is “a violation of the most basic principles of international law,” the minister stated in response to a request from the EH Bildu and Republicano groups to explain the government’s position “in light of the willingness shown by the US and Israel to initiate a plan of ethnic cleansing in Gaza.”
According to the minister, implementing Trump’s plan would be “a geopolitical error that would only bring more suffering to Palestinians and Israelis and would also completely make a peaceful future impossible, invalidating the two-state solution.”
During a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump announced on February 4 the United States’ intention to “take control” of the Gaza Strip and undertake the reconstruction of the territory to turn it into a kind of tourist resort, under US authority (the “Riviera of the Middle East”), where “people from all over the world” will reside. This will entail, he added, the demolition of its current buildings and the forced, and permanent, displacement of its 2.3 million Palestinian inhabitants.
Albares also condemned “the terrible violence that ravaged” western Syria “last weekend,” which has caused the deaths of hundreds of civilians, and demanded that “those responsible be brought to justice” so that they do not go “unpunished.”
According to the minister, the Spanish government supports “an inclusive political process that includes women, all religious and ethnic minorities, and is peaceful,” as he himself expressed last January in Damascus with the Syrian transitional resident and leader of the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Ahmad al-Shara, during a meeting he held last January during his visit to Damascus. Furthermore, he added, ethnic and religious minorities and women “can count on Spain’s support for a democratic future in which all Syrians have the same rights recognized in the Constitution.”
Last Thursday, the security forces of the new authorities in Damascus launched an armed operation against groups loyal to Al-Assad in the provinces of Latakia and Tartus, in western Syria, in response to an ambush and several attacks by insurgents against the army. This is the largest outbreak of violence since the fall of the previous regime last December, following a joint offensive by rebels and jihadists.
According to the prestigious Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, during the offensive—launched by government forces and allied armed groups—more than 970 civilians belonging to the Alawite minority, the branch of Shia Islam of the al-Assad family, whose core is located precisely in these two provinces, were executed “in cold blood.” Ahmad al-Shara announced on Sunday the creation of a commission to investigate the “violations” committed during these operations and to “preserve civil peace.”
