The Minister of Foreign Affairs announces an operation to evacuate Spaniards from Israel

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has announced an operation to repatriate more than a hundred Spaniards who are currently in Israel. He has done so in statements to Cadena SER, in which he has specified that these citizens want to leave the country and cannot do so due to the suspension of commercial flights. In total, he continued, there are 10,000 Spaniards residing between Israel and Palestine.

What the minister did not want to talk about is the two Spaniards “affected” by the Hamas attack against Israel: Iván Illarramendii, 46, a native of Zarauz, who lived in a kibbutz, and Maya Villalobo, 19, with dual Spanish-Israeli nationality, who was doing military service at a base near Gaza. According to him, she does not do it for “security reasons” and “respect for families.” At this moment, he has specified, his Ministry has no evidence that there are more Spaniards dead, injured or missing, but he has not ruled out that there may be in the future, given the difficult situation.

The head of Spanish diplomacy has firmly defended the continuity of cooperation with Palestine – which this afternoon he will debate with his European counterparts in an extraordinary council -, after yesterday the Neighborhood Commissioner, Oliver Varhely, unilaterally announced that it was suspended. and the European Commission then backtracked. Albares has argued that the entire Palestinian population cannot be punished for the actions of a terrorist group like Hamas and has assured that “the majority” of the European colleagues with whom he has spoken share this opinion.