The veteran president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmud Abbas, already warned Pedro Sánchez more than a year ago, when both met in New York on the occasion of the United Nations assembly in September 2022, that the situation in the Middle East was explosive. , if the international community did not face once and for all, with forcefulness and determination, the escalation of the crisis between Israel and Palestine. The Spanish Government now remembers how right Abbas was then, after the savage terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7, which triggered Israel’s ongoing devastating military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
After winning his re-election as head of the Executive last week, taking office before the King and presiding this Wednesday over the first meeting of his renewed Council of Ministers, Sánchez is embarking this afternoon on the first international trip of his new mandate, with a tour two days precisely through the Middle East, which will take you to Jerusalem, Ramallah and Cairo, with a final trip to the Rafah crossing, on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, the epicenter of the current Palestinian humanitarian crisis.
As president of the Council of the EU, the Spanish president defends that Europe must play a leading role in moving forward in the search for solutions to the conflict, first of all with a ceasefire that allows humanitarian aid to flow to the Gaza Strip. Gaza, and the foundations are laid to be able to hold an international peace conference within a six-month horizon that will finally address the definitive political solution of the two states, Israel and Palestine. In his inauguration speech, Sánchez promised that Spain will work actively, with its European partners, to achieve recognition of the Palestinian State, according to the resolution approved by Congress in 2014. But in a viable and credible way, and not as a mere declarative gesture. .
Sánchez will be accompanied on this tour of the Middle East by the Prime Minister of Belgium, the liberal Alexander de Croo, who as of January will take over the rotating presidency of the EU Council. Both will meet in Jerusalem on Thursday morning, first with the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, and then with the prime minister of the Hebrew State, Beniamin Netanyahu. The Spanish president has strongly condemned the terrorist attacks by Hamas, demanded the immediate release of the Jewish hostages, and defended Israel’s legitimate right to self-defense, but always within the framework of humanitarian and international law.
Government sources express enormous concern about the indiscriminate attacks by the Israeli army, the killing of innocent civilians and the unacceptable death toll in Gaza, which exceeds 13,000 in just one month. They consider the reaction of the Jewish State to be excessive and disproportionate.
The forecast, pending confirmation and fit into the tight schedule of the tour, is that Sánchez and De Croo will then travel from Jerusalem to one of the Israeli kibbutz that suffered the Hamas attacks, that of Be’eri.
Later, this Thursday afternoon, the delegation will travel back to Ramallah, capital of the West Bank, to hold a meeting with the president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmud Abbas. The Spanish Executive assures that it is necessary to support Abbas, as the Palestinian interlocutor in this dialogue process, and strengthen the Palestinian Authority itself, to also take charge of Gaza in the future, in addition to the West Bank and East Jerusalem. All this, with the support of the international community.
The tour will continue in Cairo, where Sánchez and De Croo will meet on Friday with the president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, a key interlocutor in this turbulent region of the planet, and also with the secretary general of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit. And the last stop of the trip will be at the Rafah crossing, on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, where the Spanish president wants to give visibility to the humanitarian emergency that is occurring due to the Israeli military offensive.
Sources from the Spanish government highlight the relevance that Sánchez attributes to this trip, which he wanted to address once he has once again assumed the position of president. The EU, they say, cannot look the other way in the face of this conflict. Its expansion in the region would have incalculable consequences. The tour coincides, in any case, with the ongoing negotiations, sponsored by Qatar, to achieve the release of the Israeli hostages that Hamas has held hostage since October 7. The agreement, according to the information available to Moncloa, could be imminent.
Meanwhile, the Spanish Executive is committed to revitalizing the political process, and assures that the proposal launched by Sánchez to hold an international peace conference, with the participation of Israel and Palestine, continues to gain support, which for now has the support of the EU, the Arab League and the Islamic Conference, to offer a horizon for a political solution to this entrenched conflict. Up to 84 countries, they say, endorse the Spanish proposal. The two-state solution, they insist, is the only way to guarantee Israel’s security and the legitimate aspiration of the Palestinian people to become a sovereign and independent state. And they warn that we must start working now on this process of political solution, without waiting for the war in Gaza to end.
