2 weeks Ago By Cristina Mas
The Spanish government has awarded 46 contracts to Israeli military industries worth €1,044,558,955 since October 7, 2023, when the genocidal offensive against the Gaza Strip began. Of these contracts, 10 have yet to be formalized, including the purchase of rocket launchers, missiles, and other war material. The Delàs Center for Peace Studies revealed this Friday, after the data was made public on the State Procurement Platform.
A contract for the purchase of 15 million rounds of ammunition for the Civil Guard. , but the volume of purchases goes much further. Sánchez himself and his Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, have been reiterating both in the media and in Parliament that there were no arms sales transactions with Israeli companies so as not to fuel the war machine in the midst of the genocide in Gaza.
However, data from the research center show that the procurement has continued. European legislation on arms trade prohibits the purchase and sale of military equipment to countries likely to use them in operations that violate human rights, as is the case with Israel, which faces accusations of genocide before the UN Court of Justice. The accusation also weighs on its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is being prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity for his handling of the Gaza war.
Since October 7, 2023, at least 61,000 Palestinians have died (mostly children, the elderly, and women), while hospitals, schools, and other civilian infrastructure have been destroyed, and the Strip's more than two million inhabitants are subjected to a siege of hunger and thirst. Therefore, the Delàs Center notes "the need to immediately cancel all contracts, formalized or in progress, that contribute to maintaining, legitimizing, or promoting the genocide and war crimes of Israel's military actions against the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza and the West Bank." Some of the contracts correspond to maintenance or modernization services for products acquired in the past, but others are new agreements with the Israeli war machine.
The center warns of a "worrying complicity between Spanish and Israeli arms companies." It also notes that the Spanish government could declare an arms embargo if it had the political will..
