Spain<\/a> will ban ships carrying fuel for Israel\u2019s armed forces from passing through Spanish ports, and increase its humanitarian aid toward Gaza in 2026 to reach 150 million euros ($176 million), he said.<\/p>\nThe measures would need to be approved in Parliament. <\/p>\n
Other steps included a pledge to increase aid for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, and to impose an embargo on goods made in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.<\/p>\n
Additionally, anyone who directly participates in what S\u00e1nchez termed the \u201cgenocide\u201d in Gaza would not be allowed to enter Spanish territory, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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,\u201d S\u00e1nchez said.<\/p>\n
In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said S\u00e1nchez was trying to divert attention from the corruption scandals affecting his Socialist Party, and characterized the Spanish government’s actions as \u201cantisemitic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saar said on X Israel had banned Spain\u2019s Labor Minister Yolanda D\u00edaz and Youth Minister Sira Rego from traveling to the country. Both belong to the government’s left-wing coalition partner Sumar. Saar said the ministers would be prohibited from entering Israel because they had made statements calling Israel a \u201cgenocidal state\u201d and supported efforts to sanction or boycott Israel. <\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s government has been an outspoken critic of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza, which began after Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on Oct. 7, 2023, and abducted 251 hostages. Israel\u2019s offensive has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants.<\/p>\n
Last year, Spain joined Norway and Ireland to formally recognize a Palestinian state and was the first European country to ask a U.N. court for permission to join South Africa\u2019s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. <\/p>\n
On Monday, Saar downplayed the effect the Spanish government’s actions would have on Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they want to hold or halt defense connections with Israel,\u201d Saar told reporters, \u201cwho do you think will lose from that? We don\u2019t need Spain to protect the land of Israel.\u201d <\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Associated Press writer Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-407862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115168822144196124","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}