Spain Bans Delivery And Aircraft Transporting Weapons To Israel From Its Ports And Airspace

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. (Wikimedia Commons/Fernando Calvo Rollan)

JAKARTA - Spain will increase pressure on Israel by banning ships and arms carriers to Israel from stopping at the Spanish port or entering Spanish airspace, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Monday.

Spain will also increase aid to the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations Aid and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and will impose an embargo on goods manufactured in Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, he said.

"We hope (these actions) will add pressure to Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government to ease some of the suffering suffered by Palestinians," PM Sanchez said in a public speech broadcast on local TV.

Spain will also ban anyone directly involved in what PM Sanchez calls a "genocide" to enter the country.

Separately, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said in a statement on Monday that PM Sanchez was trying to distract the public from his domestic corruption scandal and classify his actions as an "anisemite".

Israel responded by banning the Minister of Manpower Yolanda Diaz and the Minister of Youth Sira Rego, both of whom from Sumar's left-wing junior coalition partners, from entering Israel.