The PSOE partners in the acting Government are marking their own path in their position on the conflict in the Middle East unleashed after the attacks committed by Hamas last Saturday and the Israeli military response. The acting Minister of Social Rights, Ione Belarra, has published a video in which she urges the Government to denounce Israel before the International Criminal Court for “war crimes.” Likewise, the leadership of IU – a party led by the acting Minister of Consumption, Alberto Garzón – has sent a letter in which it demands “Spain’s condemnation of the Israeli attacks.” These pronouncements commit Spain to present itself with a unique voice in the delicate international diplomatic scenario drawn after the crisis unleashed in the Middle East.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, also spoke this Saturday to announce an increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza. “Alarmed by the humanitarian situation in Gaza. It is urgent to protect the civilian population, allow access to aid and ensure respect for international humanitarian law, including the release of hostages. We are ready to increase Spanish aid after the initial support of one million euros,” he said. indicated in social network X, without reference to the requirements of its Government partners.
The general secretary of Podemos, Ione Belarra, published a video this Saturday in which she harshly attacks the US and the EU, whom she accuses of being “complicit in the war crimes committed by Israel” in the Palestinian territories. Furthermore, he has urged the PSOE to act together to present a “petition to the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court from the Government of Spain to investigate the war crimes committed in Palestine by Netanyahu, as was done recently in the case of the Spanish aid worker murdered in the Ukrainian war, as well as those perpetrated by Hamas in Israel and the occupied territories against the civilian population.
“I address each and everyone with an absolutely heavy heart due to the images that come to us from Palestine,” begins Belarra’s speech broadcast on social networks. “At Podemos we are not indifferent to the atrocious suffering that the Palestinian people have been experiencing for decades,” adds the acting Minister of Social Rights, who denounces “that the State of Israel is carrying out a planned genocide in the Gaza Strip.”
According to Belarra, “bombings on the civilian population are a collective punishment that seriously violates international law and can be considered war crimes.” And he adds: “Given this, the US and the EU are not only looking the other way, they are encouraging the State of Israel in its policy of apartheid and occupation that seriously violates human rights.”
In Belarra’s opinion, “the deep cause of the conflict that is expressed today” is “Israel’s occupation and apartheid of Palestine.” Furthermore, he recalls that “the State of Israel, its prime minister and his party have acknowledged on numerous occasions that they promoted Hamas to weaken the secular sectors of the Palestinian resistance.” For this reason, he describes it as “unspeakable hypocrisy” – which he attributes to both Israel and the countries that justify it – “to use Hamas as an excuse to murder thousands of Palestinian civilians, including boys and girls.”
“Using the terrible murders of Israeli civilians by Palestinian armed factions as an excuse to justify Israel’s crimes and the masquerade in Gaza is absolutely unacceptable,” reiterates the Podemos leader.
During her speech, Belarra harshly attacks the US for its position in the Middle East conflict and also against the EU: “It must stop being an accomplice to a war criminal like Netanyahu,” she says. “It is urgent to recognize that what we see in Gaza are war crimes and that Palestinian lives matter,” he adds. “The EU must recover its values ??of peace and abandon its following of the US,” concludes the acting minister of the Government of Spain.
Finally, Belarra encourages the citizens of our country and other European countries to mobilize in the streets to protest against Israel.
For its part, the collegiate leadership of Izquierda Unida Federal has sent a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, in which it assures that “Spain must lead a position in the EU that condemns the Israeli attacks, guarantees humanitarian aid and bets for the freedom of the Palestinian people. Furthermore, the letter demands that “your ministry must strongly and immediately condemn this situation, call for a ceasefire and take all measures at its disposal to ensure it.”
“We cannot be mere witnesses of how Israel is preparing for a land invasion of the Gaza Strip with the aim of destroying it, as its own military commanders have declared,” IU proclaims in its letter to Albares in which it adds: ” As the country that presides over the Council of the EU, Spain must lead a community position that unequivocally condemns the Israeli attacks, works to guarantee the arrival of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and supports the freedom of the Palestinian people and their fight against the occupation. “.
IU also demands that the EU-Israel Association Agreement be suspended “Normalized relations cannot be maintained with a State that commits war crimes and is moving towards ethnic cleansing,” states the party text of acting minister Garzón.
