Spain to Recognize Palestine Unilaterally as Barcelona City Suspends Relations with “Israel”
By Staff, Agencies
Spain is willing to move ahead by itself on the matter of recognizing Palestinian statehood, though it would prefer to act alongside other EU members, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Friday.
Spain currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, which Belgium will take over in January. Sanchez and his Belgian counterpart, Alexander De Croo, spoke to reporters at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, just before the Qatar-brokered “humanitarian pause” and release of 13 “Israeli” settlers held as captives.
Asked if he would support unilateral recognition of the Palestinian state, Sanchez declared that “the moment has come” for the EU and the rest of the “international community” to do so.
“It would be important if many member states of the EU, we do it all together,” the Spanish PM said. “If this is not the case, of course, Spain will take their own decisions.”
On Thursday, Sanchez and DeCroo met with both the apartheid “Israeli” entity’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas, as part of their regional mission to stop the conflict in Gaza.
After the meeting with Netanyahu, Sanchez told reporters that “today, peace means the establishment of a viable Palestinian state that includes the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem [al-Quds], according to the UN resolutions.”
Relatedly, Barcelona City Council has suspended the city's relations with the “Israeli” regime as long as the latter continues its ongoing deadly war against the Gaza Strip.
The council took the move on Friday by adopting a relevant declaration, which obliged the regime to "respect the basic rights of the Palestinian people," Turkey's state-run Anadolu agency reported.
The declaration was put forward by former mayor Ada Colau’s far-left Barcelona en Comun party and backed by his replacement Jaume Collboni’s Socialist Party, as well as the left-wing separatist Republican Left of Catalonia [ERC] party.
The “Israeli” entity launched the war on October 7 following an Operation al-Aqsa Flood by Gaza's resistance groups.
The Government Media Office in Gaza announced in a report on Thursday that at least 14,854 Palestinians, including more than 6,150 children and 4,000 women, have been killed and over 36,000 others injured in the “Israeli” strikes.
Tel Aviv has also blocked the flow of water, food, and electricity towards Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.
Friday's declaration condemned all attacks on the civilian population as well as "any collective punishment, forced displacement, systematic destruction of homes and civil infrastructure as well as the blockade of energy, water, food, and medical supplies to the population of the Gaza Strip."
According to Barcelona’s approved statement, the main obstacles to long-lasting peace are "the occupation and colonization of Palestinian territories," and the "denial of rights" to the people.
Other high-profile members of Spain’s government, including former minister Ione Belarra, have censured the "deafening silence" of her country and the “Israeli” regime's other Western allies on Tel Aviv's ferocious warfare against Gaza.
