Spain calls for international weapons embargo on Israeli government
Spain is calling for an international arms embargo on the Israeli government to end the war and the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.
"We must all agree on a joint arms embargo," Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares told journalists at the start of a ministerial meeting of the so-called Madrid Group in the Spanish capital on Sunday. "The last thing the Middle East needs right now is weapons."
Albares also called for an "immediate suspension" of the European Union's partnership agreement with Israel - a measure currently being considered in Brussels - and for the imposition of targeted sanctions against individuals "who obstruct the two-state solution."
If necessary, sanctions should also be imposed against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Albares asserted.
"Nothing that is being discussed here is directed against the State of Israel," the top Spanish diplomat emphasized. But he also made it clear that "the Palestinian people have exactly the same right to peace and security as the Israeli people."
There is no alternative to the two-state solution for achieving lasting and just peace, Albares said.
In an interview with French broadcaster France Info shortly before, the minister had said: "What is the alternative? Kill all Palestinians? Drive them... I don't know where... to the moon? (...) Or give them Israeli citizenship?"
The Spanish government is one of the harshest critics in Europe of Israel's military action in Gaza.
In September last year, it organized a first meeting of the Madrid Group.
Ministers and high-ranking representatives from around 20 countries in Europe and the Arab world, as well as Brazil, are taking part in the second meeting.
Germany was involved for the first time and was represented by Foreign Office minister Florian Hahn.
Since the start of the Gaza war with the unprecedented massacre by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023, more than 53,900 people have been killed according to Palestinian sources.
More than 122,700 have been injured.
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