Alex Trelinski
BARCELONA’S mayor, Jaume Collboni, has got a last minute ban from entering Israel after the Catalan capital put aside its twinning arrangement with Tel Aviv in May.
Collboni was due to arrive on Friday evening but the Israeli Interior Ministry revoked his visa.
The Tel Aviv twinning was suspended ‘until international law is restored’- in reference to military action being taken by Israeli forces against Hamas in the Gaza area.
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The city council’s decision came in response to incidents committed against civilians in the Gaza Strip, a year after Spain’s recognition of the Palestinian state in May 2024.
Barcelona’s mayor was set to travel to Jerusalem as well as the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem.
Collboni described the ban ‘of a delegation seeking dialogue’ as a ‘hostile act’.
The mayor was going to be accompanied by council officials and journalists in a trip permitted by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“The objective was to learn first-hand about the reality of Palestinian cities and explore ways of helping from Barcelona,” he stated.
The mayor accused the Israeli government of ‘seeking to isolate the Palestinian people and hide from the world the violation of rights they suffer’.
“It is an attack on freedom and diplomacy between cities,” he commented.
Collboni had been invited by the West Bank city mayors and was also scheduled to meet with Palestine Prime Minister, Mohamed Mustafa.
The trip had also scheduled a stopover in Jordan to be briefed about cooperation projects with the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees, to which Barcelona is a contributor.
An Interior Ministry statement said that Israel had blocked the visit because of Collboni’s ‘background’ of ‘defamation of the state and participation in a boycott of Israel’.
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