Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares announced his country will not be allowing ships carrying arms to Israel to call at its ports, in keeping with its commitment to not “contribute to war”, The Independent reported.
His comments came after Spain refused to let a ship carrying 27 tons of explosives from India to Haifa dock at the Cartagena port.
“This is the first time we have done this because it is the first time we have detected a ship carrying a shipment of arms to Israel that wants to call at a Spanish port,” Albares told reporters in Brussels on Thursday.
“This will be a consistent policy with any ship carrying arms to Israel that wants to call at Spanish ports. The foreign ministry will systematically reject such stopovers for one obvious reason: the Middle East does not need more weapons, it needs more peace,” he stated.
The vessel had requested to call at the Cartagena port on May 21, transport minister Oscar Puente said.
The Spanish government has been vocal in its criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza, which followed the Hamas massacre in southern Israel on October 7.
In November, Spain’s Ambassador to Israel was summoned by the Foreign Ministry after the country’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, claimed that "Israel is violating international law and is carrying out indiscriminate killings in Gaza."
Sanchez last month criticized what he called Israel's "disproportionate response" in the Gaza war, saying it risks "destabilizing the Middle East, and as a consequence, the entire world".
Sanchez also insisted that the recognition of a Palestinian state is "in Europe's geopolitical interests". The comments came a week after he said that his country will recognize Palestinian statehood by July.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)