Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez escalated his government’s anti-Israel stance Monday by announcing a formal arms embargo and barring ships carrying military fuel to Israeli forces from docking in Spanish ports.
“We hope that (the measures) will serve to add pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government to alleviate some of the suffering that the Palestinian population is enduring,” Sánchez said in a public address on Monday.
Sánchez also announced that he will now ban ships and planes carrying weapons en route to Israel from visiting Spanish ports or entering its airspace. Additional measures target settlement products in Judea and Samaria for embargo and increase Spanish contributions to UNRWA in spite of the agency’s documented terrorist ties to Hamas.
“It’s one thing to protect your country, but quite another to bomb hospitals and starve innocent children. What Israel is doing is exterminating a defenseless people. It’s breaking all the rules of humanitarian law. We can’t stand idly by,” Sánchez wrote on X.
In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Sánchez of antisemitism and corruption, and announced Spanish Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Labor Yolanda Díaz and Minister of Children from the far-left Sumar party would be banned from entering Israel.
“The government of Spain is leading a hostile, anti-Israel line, marked by wild, hate-filled rhetoric,” Saar wrote on social media. “It is no longer possible to avoid imposing personal sanctions on members of the Spanish government who have crossed every red line.”
Spain’s formal embargo places it among a growing list of European nations restricting arms sales to Israel. Italy, Japan, Canada, Colombia, the Netherlands and Belgium have all ceased weapons sales to Israel since the Gaza conflict began.
However, Sánchez’s hostility toward Israel extends well beyond his country’s arms embargo. In July, he led efforts to formally join South Africa’s “genocide” case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and in May 2024 joined Ireland and Norway in prematurely recognizing a Palestinian State.
“All that we have done so far has not succeeded in alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people,” Sánchez acknowledged. “There is an urgent need to work to achieve peace in the Middle East.”
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