Spain's foreign minister condemns 'scandalous' Israeli flamenco video

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Palestinian Prime Minister Mustafa visits Belgium.

Spain's foreign minister condemned as "scandalous and execrable" a video posted by his Israeli counterpart suggesting Hamas would be grateful to Spain, in a growing spat between the two countries over the Gaza war.

Spain last week announced it would recognise Palestine as a state and in recent days two Spanish government ministers referred to a genocide in Gaza.

A short video posted by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz on the social media platform X on Sunday says "Hamas: Gracias España" ("Hamas: Thanks Spain").

The video shows the Spanish flag then a couple dancing to flamenco music. Film of Hamas fighters is interspersed including people fleeing during the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that triggered Israel's military campaign in Gaza.

"We are not going to fall into provocations. The video is scandalous and execrable," Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told a news conference in Brussels.

"Its scandalous because all the world knows, including my colleague in Israel, that Spain condemned the actions of Hamas from the first moment. And execrable for the use of one of those symbols of Spanish culture."

Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles said on Saturday that the conflict in Gaza is a "real genocide", echoing a comment by Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Diaz who last week also described the conflict as a genocide.

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Israel has strongly rejected accusations made against it by South Africa at the International Court of Justice that it is committing a genocide against Palestinians, arguing it is acting to defend itself and fighting Hamas.

The Israeli embassy in Madrid responded to Robles' comments in a statement posted on Saturday on X.

"We regret that ... Robles has endorsed the false and unfounded story of the terrorist organization Hamas. Israel fights in Gaza in accordance with international law in a war against Hamas that it neither started nor wanted, a consequence of the unprecedented massacre perpetrated last Oct. 7."

The EU, like the United States, deems Hamas a terrorist organisation.

Spain, along with Ireland and Norway, declared this week it would recognise a Palestinian state on May 28. Israel said this amounted to a "reward for terrorism" and recalled its ambassadors from the three capitals.

In her remarks in a television interview on Saturday, Robles said Madrid's recognition of Palestine was not a move against Israel but was aimed at helping end violence in Gaza.

Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and destroyed much of the enclave.

Israel launched the operation to try to eliminate Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack in which some 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

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Spanish defence minister says Gaza war is 'real genocide'

Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles attends a roundtable discussion during a NATO summit in Madrid.

The Spanish defence minister said on Saturday that the conflict in Gaza is a "real genocide", as relations between Israel and Spain worsen following Madrid's decision to recognise a Palestinian state.

Reuters couldn't immediately reach Israeli officials for comment on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.

Israel has strongly rejected accusations made against it by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that it is committing a genocide against Palestinians, saying it is waging war on the Hamas militant group which attacked on Oct. 7.

The remark by Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles in an interview with TVE state television echoed a comment by Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Diaz who earlier this week also described the Gaza conflict as a genocide.

"We cannot ignore what is happening in Gaza, which is a real genocide," Robles said in the interview, during which she also discussed the Russian invasion of Ukraine and conflicts in Africa.

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She also said Madrid's recognition of Palestine was not a move against Israel, adding that it was designed to help "end violence in Gaza". "This is not against anyone, this is not against the Israeli state, this is not against the Israelis, who are people we respect," she said.

Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and destroyed much of the enclave. Israel launched the operation to try to eliminate Hamas after the Palestinian militant group's attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which some 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Spain, along with Ireland and Norway, declared this week it would recognise a Palestinian state on May 28, prompting an angry response from Israel, which said it amounted to a "reward for terrorism" and recalled its ambassadors from the three capitals.

Judges at the ICJ, the top U.N. court, on Friday ordered Israelto immediately halt its military assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, in a landmark emergency ruling in the case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide.

Spain's Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said on Saturday that Israel must obey the court's ruling.

"The International Court of Justice's precautionary measures, including the cessation of Israel's offensive in Rafah, are mandatory. We demand its application," he said in a post on social media site X.

South Africa has accused Israel of failing to uphold its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Israel rejects the accusation, arguing it is acting to defend itself and fighting Hamas - designated as a terrorist organisation by the U.S. and other Western countries - after the Oct. 7 attack.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Wednesday that if more nations recognised the Palestinian state it would add to international pressure for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

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UN court order demanding that Israel halt its Gaza offensive further isolates the US position

 A U.N. court's order that Israel halt its offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah has deepened a disconnect with the United States over a military operation that faces mounting international condemnation but that American officials describe, at least for now, as limited and targeted.

The decision Friday by the International Court of Justice in The Hague adds to the pressure facing an increasingly isolated Israel, coming just days after Norway, Ireland and Spain said they would recognize a Palestinian state, and the chief prosecutor of a separate international court sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as leaders of Hamas.

The Biden administration stands apart from the global community — though it is opposed to a major offensive in Rafah, the administration also insists that the steps its close ally Israel has taken so far have not crossed red lines.

Administration officials so far have appeared determined to press on with military and political support for Israel following the deadly Hamas attack it endured last October, while also pressuring its ally to avoid a full-scale military operation in densely populated Rafah.

“What we have seen so far in terms of Israel’s military operations in that area has been more targeted and limited, has not involved major military operations into the heart of dense urban areas," national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at a White House briefing this week.

But, he added, “We now have to see what unfolds from here.”

A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe the administration's internal assessment of the situation, said the operation in Gaza had “not yet moved into the core heart of Rafah that gets us to the densest of dense areas.”

Earlier this month, the White House announced it was pausing a shipment of some 3,500 bombs, including massive 2,000-pound explosives that the Biden administration said were leading to civilian deaths. President Joe Biden warned during a CNN interview that “if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah.”

U.S. officials in pressuring Israel had suggested that a major operation was a red line that would undermine stalled negotiations on a deal to return Israeli hostages taken by Hamas and would lead Biden to further dial back what weaponry he would send Israel.

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But the tone at the White House seemed to take a notable shift this week after Sullivan returned from a visit to Israel, where he said he had been briefed on “refinements” in the Israeli plan to root out Hamas in Rafah, and to Saudi Arabia.

During Sullivan’s talks with Netanyahu and other officials during the trip, the Israeli side addressed many of Biden’s concerns about its plans for Rafah, according to a senior administration official who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

The official said the administration stopped short of greenlighting the Israeli plan but Israeli officials’ altered planning suggested they were taking Biden’s concerns seriously.

That assessment may be of little consolation to Palestinians still trapped in Rafah — the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt, and the site of a critical crossing for aid. More than 1 million people sought refuge there in recent months after escaping fighting elsewhere but some 900,000 have since fled the city.

Israel has brought hundreds of trucks in through the other main border crossing, Kerem Shalom, but the U.N. and aid groups say Israeli military operations make it dangerous for them to pick up food, water and other supplies for starving Palestinians.

The U.S. Agency for International Development says Gaza requires a steady flow of 600 trucks a day of food and other aid to reverse the onset of what the heads of USAID and the U.N. World Food Program call famine in the north and to keep it from spreading to the south.

Even with a U.S. pier starting to bring in a small amount of aid by sea, Gaza has received only a fraction of the amount of supplies needed since the start of the Israeli offensive.

Leading international humanitarian groups welcomed the ICJ ruling for the pressure they hoped it would bring. Doctors Without Borders said it was confirmation of how “catastrophic” the situation had become for Palestinian civilians in Gaza and “the desperate need for humanitarian aid to be scaled up immediately.”

There's no practical mechanism to force Israel to comply with the court order, which, in addition to ordering a halt to the offensive, also mandates an increase of humanitarian aid to the region and access to Gaza for war crimes investigators.

Israel showed no signs that it intended to change course after Friday's ruling. The war in Gaza followed an Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed roughly 1,200 people, about a quarter of them soldiers, with another 250 taken captive. At least 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.

The court's demands go beyond what the U.S. has asked of Israel at the moment, though Washington has nonetheless signaled that it remains opposed to a more intrusive operation in Gaza.

“When it comes to Rafah, we’ve made known for a long time our concerns about a full-on military assault of Rafah and the damage that that could do to civilian population absent a clear and credible plan to protect it,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday.

Blinken also reiterated that the administration does not believe a major offensive would achieve the results that Israel is looking to achieve, “which is to deal effectively and durably with Hamas.”

“Our concerns about a full-on military assault in Rafah remain,” he said. “We have other ways of dealing with the challenge posed by Hamas that we believe can be more effective and more durable.”

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