The veteran president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmud Abas, already warned Pedro Sánchez more than a year ago, when they both met in New York, that the situation in the Middle East was explosive, if the international community did not address it once and for all. all 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 his new inauguration, Sánchez undertook the first international trip of his new mandate, with a tour of the Middle East, with stops in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Cairo, with a final trip to the Rafah crossing, on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, epicenter of the Palestinian humanitarian crisis.
As president of the Council of the EU, the Spanish president defends that Europe must play a leading role in advancing in the search for solutions to the conflict that lay the foundations for holding an international peace conference within a six-month horizon that addresses , finally, the definitive political solution of the two states, Israel and Palestine.
Sánchez is 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 as the rotating presidency of the EU Council. Both will meet today in Jerusalem, first with the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, and then with the prime minister of the Hebrew State, Beniamin Netanyahu. The Spanish president strongly condemns the terrorist attacks by Hamas, demands the immediate release of the Jewish hostages and defends 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 that the reaction of the Jewish State is being disproportionate.
Later, this afternoon, Sánchez and De Croo will travel to Ramallah, capital of the West Bank, to hold a meeting with the president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmud Abas. The Spanish Executive assures that it is necessary to support Abbas, as a Palestinian interlocutor and so that he also takes charge of Gaza in the future, in addition to the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The tour will continue in Cairo, where Sánchez and De Croo will meet on Friday with the president of Egypt, Abdul Fatah al Sisi, a key interlocutor in this turbulent region of the planet, and also with the secretary general of the Arab League, Ahmed Abul Gueit. 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.
Sources from the Spanish Government highlight the importance that Sánchez attributes to this trip. The tour coincides with ongoing negotiations, sponsored by Qatar, to achieve the release of the Israeli hostages that Hamas has held since October 7. Just yesterday, Israel and Hamas reached an agreement to exchange hostages for prisoners, and four days of truce for humanitarian aid to enter.
In the Spanish Executive, meanwhile, they are committed to the revitalization of the political process and assure 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. 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.
