The first evacuation operation of citizens with Spanish passports from Gaza has been successfully completed. “The first group of 40 Hispano-Palestinians have already crossed the Egyptian checkpoint” through the Rafah crossing, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, announced yesterday evening in Brussels.
In this first operation, which lasted all day and benefited 33 people with Spanish nationality and 7 family members, priority was given to families with children and the elderly in a vulnerable situation. The Spanish embassy organized the transfer of the first group of evacuees by bus from Rafah to Cairo, from where planes from the Ministry of Defense will transfer them to Spain in the coming days. It is planned that the governments of Israel and Egypt will allow the passage of 80 more people today, Albares announced while the final procedures were being carried out with Cairo to secure the device. “It is likely that we will have to do some more operation so that they all leave [the Spaniards from Gaza] as soon as possible, we will not leave anyone behind”, he indicated.
Yesterday at noon, the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, had expressed her “enormous concern” that the Rafah crossing had not been opened for the passage of the Spanish contingent, but the operation finally came to fruition. “It is not a problem of Israel or Egypt, Hamas has also made certain actions difficult”, said Robles. Albares, on the other hand, advocated being extremely discreet about the details of the device and the negotiations.
The evacuation of the Hispano-Palestinian colony comes after more than a month of total blockade of the strip by the Israeli authorities, in parallel with the departure of other European citizens. Albares remarked that it is a very complex operation because it is happening in the middle of military movements and needs the agreement of the two countries, Egypt and Israel, but he assured that the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs “is working from minute one” in this regard .
Madrid estimates that the number of Palestinians with Spanish nationality in the strip is between 170 and 190 people. “Today is a happy day because 40 have left, but it will be completely happy when they have all left” those who want to do so, concluded Albares, who avoided specifying the number of Spaniards in the enclave. Until yesterday, only two Spaniards had managed to leave the strip by taking advantage of the reopening of the Rafah crossing for foreigners who work in international organizations.
Since the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack, it is estimated that at least 11,000 people have died in Gaza from Israeli bombing. The testimonies of the Hispano-Palestinians who managed to leave Gaza yesterday are devastating. “Everything is destroyed”, some of these citizens explained to the Efe agency. “We were very bad, there was no gas, water or food, the food that is left is getting worse and worse” and there are “bombings everywhere”, said Amelia Julia Sayans, a 70-year-old Spaniard who is married to a Gazan who manage to cross the Rafah border crossing yesterday.
During the meeting of EU foreign ministers held yesterday in Brussels, Minister Albares defended going a step further in the European position and calling for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” to allow the help the strip and alleviate the situation of the civilian population. At the moment, the consensus is to request that the “pauses” for humanitarian purposes be activated “immediately”. Josep Borrell, high representative of the EU’s Foreign Policy, host of the meeting, called on the Twenty-seven to get more involved in the political solution to the conflict. “We have been too absent in the solution of this problem, which we have delegated to the United States, but now Europe must commit more”, because otherwise, “we will live a cycle of violence that will be perpetuated from generation to generation, from funeral to funeral”.
