THE GUARDIAN: Spain announces raft of measures designed to increase pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu to end Gaza war
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has stepped up his scathing criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, accusing Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of “exterminating a defenceless people” by bombing hospitals and “killing innocent boys and girls with hunger”.
Speaking on Monday morning to announce a raft of measures designed to increase the pressure on Netanyahu to stop the military campaign, Sánchez said that while the Spanish government would always support Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself, it felt compelled to try to “stop a massacre”.
“Protecting your country and your society is one thing, but bombing hospitals and killing innocent boys and girls with hunger is another thing entirely,” he said.
“What Prime Minister Netanyahu presented in October 2023 as a military operation in response to the horrific terrorist attacks has ended up becoming a new wave of illegal occupations and an unjustifiable attack against the Palestinian civilian population – an attack that the UN special rapporteur and the majority of experts already describe as a genocide.”
The Spanish prime minister pointed to the numbers of dead, injured, displaced and malnourished. “That isn’t defending yourself; that’s not even attacking,” he said. “It’s exterminating a defenceless people. It’s breaking all the rules of humanitarian law.” » | Sam Jones in Madrid | Monday, September 8, 2025
Thank God for a European leader with sound principles and with the courage to speak out against what is happening to these beleaguered and besieged people. Kudos! It is unfathomable how the world can look on while innocent people are being starved to death and killed. And this from a people who should know better. — © Mark Alexander
