Ben Pawlowski
SPAIN will airdrop 12 tonnes of food into the war-torn Gaza Strip this Friday, prime minister Pedro Sanchez has announced.
“The famine in Gaza is a shame for all of humanity and stopping it, therefore, is a moral imperative,” the Spanish premier said at a press conference on Monday as he disclosed details of the aid delivery.
The operation will see parcels of food airdropped with parachutes into Gaza using aircraft from the Spanish Air Force.
The move comes after Israel announced they have set up ‘secure routes to enable the safe passage of UN and humanitarian aid organisation convoys delivering and distributing food and medicine to the population across the Gaza Strip’.
On Sunday, Israel said it would stop all fighting across large swathes of Gaza for ten-hour ‘humanitarian pauses’ each day, allowing much-needed food supplies to enter the embattled region.
Over 50 people have died of causes related to malnutrition in the past three weeks, including 22 children, the Gaza Hamas-run health ministry said on Friday.
Israeli authorities have denied claims of famine in the region, instead blaming malnutrition on Hamas or international aid organisations.
READ MORE: Spain’s Pedro Sanchez demands Israel be kicked out of Eurovision ‘like Russia was’
But the Spanish government – long-term supporters of Palestine – take a very different view, with foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares describing the crisis as ‘a disgrace for Israel and for humanity’.
Speaking at a UN meeting on Monday, Albares admitted the forthcoming aid delivery would be a ‘drop in the ocean’ in comparison to the level of support required to stave off mass famine.
But the foreign minister was adamant that words were ‘no longer enough’.
“What we cannot allow – and it is clear that there are many of us who think this way – is for the State of Israel to have a kind of veto right over peace in the Middle East, a veto right over the existence or not of the Palestinian state, or worse still, a macabre veto right over the life or death of 100,000 Palestinian children,” he told the meeting.
Writing on X, prime minister Pedro Sanchez said: “Stopping the famine in Gaza is a moral, political and humanitarian imperative.
“The Government is already preparing a shipment of food for the Strip.
“But the only true solution is for Netanyahu to activate a ceasefire, open the land humanitarian corridor and end this barbarity.”
The Spanish premier has been one of Israel’s most outspoken critics on the international stage.
Earlier this year, Israel summoned the Spanish ambassador to an emergency meeting after Sanchez branded the country a ‘genocidal state’ during a debate in parliament..
Sanchez’s government had already provoked the Israeli government’s ire in May 2024 when Spain joined Ireland and Norway in handing formal diplomatic recognition to the Palestinian Authority in a move which the prime minister labelled as ‘historic’ and insisted would ‘contribute to the achievement of peace between Israelis and Palestinians’.
READ MORE: Israel summons Spanish ambassador after PM Pedro Sanchez calls country a ‘genocidal state’
In response, then-foreign minister and current Israeli defence minister took to social media to accuse Sanchez and his deputy Yoland Diaz of being ‘accomplices in inciting the murder of the Jewish people’.
Diaz, the former leader of far-left Sumar, had previously called Israel’s military offensive in Gaza a ‘real genocide’.
Amnesty International and a United Nations Special Committee are among a host of human rights organisations to have accused Israel of committing a genocide in Gaza following the October 7 attacks when over 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered by Hamas terrorists.
According to the Palestinian health ministry, over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict after Israel Defence Forces (IDF) launched an intensive bombing campaign and ground invasion of the Strip.
Last week, Emmanuel Macron said France would become the first G7 nation to officially recognise a Palestinian state.
That was followed by the UK on Tuesday evening, with Sir Keir Starmer saying his government will recognise a Palestinian state in September unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza.
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