“It is one thing to protect your country, to protect your society, and quite another to bomb hospitals and starve innocent children to death.”

Thus forcefully did the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sanchez, speak on Monday, by announcing a package of nine pressure measures on Israel, including the approval of a decree-law to impose an arms embargo, as well as a ban on entry to Spain for anyone who has directly participated in what Sanchez called “genocide.” This is the first time that the Spanish government has openly used the word “genocide” to refer to Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip, although it did mention that this is how UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese and most experts describe it. More than 64,000 people, including nearly 19,000 children, have died as a result of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since October 2023 in retaliation for Hamas attacks that killed more than 1,200 people. Sanchez, who spoke in an appearance where questions were not allowed, said that what began as a response to “the atrocious Hamas attacks” of October 7 October 2023, “it is not defending oneself, it is not even attacking, it is exterminating a defenseless people, it is breaking all the laws of Humanitarian Law.”

For this reason, the president said that the measures seek to “persecute those who carried them out” and added that he hoped that “they will serve to pressure Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu and his government to alleviate some of the suffering endured by the Palestinian population.”

However, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said in a statement on Monday that Sanchez was trying to “divert attention from the serious corruption scandals through a continuous anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic campaign.”

In addition, Israel responded by banning Labor Minister Yolanda Diaz and Youth Minister Sira Rego, both from the left-wing Sumar party, from entering the country.coalition partner in the government. Rego is of Palestinian descent on his father's side and spent part of his childhood in the occupied West Bank.

In response, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares recalled his ambassador in Tel Aviv for consultations in response to the "slanderous accusations against Spain and the "unacceptable measures" against Diaz and Rego, according to the Europa Press agency.

Previously, the Ministry announced that the country "will not be intimidated in its defense of peace, international law and human rights."

Neither weapons nor transit

In his speech, the president of the Spanish government said that "the Jewish people have suffered countless persecutions and injustices throughout history, including the most atrocious of all, which was the Holocaust."

He added that "after so much suffering, they deserve to have their own state and deserve to feel safe in it."

Sanchez reinforced that Spain "will support always Israel's right to exist, to guarantee its security and prosper,” but then noted that, after October 7, 2023, what was initially an operation against the “atrocious Hamas attacks, has ended up becoming a new wave of illegal occupations and an unjustifiable attack against the Palestinian civilian population.”

The first measure announced is “the urgent approval of a royal decree law that legally consolidates the arms embargo on Israel.”

Although Spain has applied this de facto since October 2023, this mechanism goes a step further and establishes a “legal and permanent prohibition on buying and selling weapons, ammunition and military equipment to Israel.”

This is a measure that its governing partner, the left-wing Sumar party, whose visible head is Yolanda Diaz, had long been demanding.

Spain is not one of the major suppliers of arms to Israel and this embargo is not a measure that will significantly affect it in in terms of logistics to the Israeli security forces.

Sanchez himself acknowledged this: “We alone cannot stop the Israeli offensive, but that does not mean that we will not stop trying.”

At the same time, in recent months Spain urged other European countries to take this measure and suspend arms shipments to Israel.

The main suppliers of arms to Israel are the United States, Germany and Italy. Furthermore, Israel itself is one of the largest arms exporters in the world, so it also has a powerful national industry.

“The international community is not knowing how to stop this tragedy,perhaps because the world's great powers have ended up stuck between indifference to a conflict that never ends and complicity with Prime Minister Netanyahu's government," the president said.

Another measure is a ban on entry to Spain for "all those who directly participate in genocide, human rights violations, and war crimes in the Gaza Strip," although Sanchez did not specify who will be affected or, specifically, whether this includes Netanyahu.

Measures against settlements

Another part of the package of measures affects settler settlements in the occupied West Bank. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, although Israel denies this.

One of these actions by the Spanish government will be a ban on importing products from these settlements "with the aim of combating these occupations, stopping the forced displacement of the Palestinian population, and keeping the two-way solution alive." states.”

The draft agreement for a two-state solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians established Palestinian Authority (PA) administration in areas that Israel conquered and occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War. But Israeli settler settlements continued to grow in recent years.

Another measure Sanchez announced affects Spanish citizens residing in these settlements. From now on, consular services will be limited “to the minimum assistance legally required.”

He also said the Spanish government would increase aid to the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).