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Spain demands Israel comply with UN court ruling on Rafah

The Spanish government demanded on Saturday that Israel comply with an order by the top UN court to immediately stop its bombardment and ground assault on the Gazan city of Rafah.

Published: 25 May 2024 13:38 CEST
NETHERLANDS-SAFRICA-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT-ICJ
Members of the South Africa's legal team (L) attend a hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as part of South Africa's request on a Gaza ceasefire in The Hague, on May 24th, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas movement. Photo by: Nick Gammon / AFP

It stressed that the ruling on Friday by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was legally binding.

“The precautionary measures set out by the ICJ, including that Israel should cease its military offensive in Rafah, are compulsory. Israel must comply with them,” Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares wrote on X.

“The same goes for a ceasefire, the release of the hostages and access for humanitarian aid (to Gaza),” he said.

“The suffering of the people of Gaza and the violence must end.”

In a case brought by South Africa alleging the Israeli assault on Gaza amounts to “genocide”, the ICJ ordered Israel on Friday to “immediately halt” the ground and air offensive in Rafah.

The operations began on May 7 despite international fears for the safety of the 1.4 million civilians trapped in the city.

The Hague-based ICJ, whose orders are legally binding but lack direct enforcement mechanisms, also ruled that Israel must keep open the key Rafah crossing with Egypt to allow “unhindered” humanitarian aid into Gaza.

And it urged the “unconditional” release of hostages taken by Hamas fighters during their October 7 attack in Israel.

Israel responded on Saturday by bombing Rafah and other parts of the densely populated Gaza Strip.

Spain is one of the European countries to have been most critical of Israel over the war in Gaza.

On Wednesday, Spain, Ireland and Norway said their governments would recognise a Palestinian state from next week.

Israel summoned their envoys to “reprimand” them for the decision and on Friday said it would ban Spain’s consulate in Jerusalem from helping Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

The war in Gaza began after Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Some 252 people were taken hostage, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the Israeli army says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 35,857 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to data from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

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POLITICS

First pardons granted under Spain’s amnesty for Catalan separatists

A politician and police officer on Tuesday became the first people to benefit from Spain's divisive amnesty law for Catalan separatists involved in a botched 2017 secession bid.

Published: 26 June 2024 07:58 CEST
First pardons granted under Spain's amnesty for Catalan separatists

The amnesty law – approved last month – is expected to affect around 400 people facing trial or already convicted over their roles in the wealthy northeastern region’s failed independence push, which triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez agreed to grant the amnesty in exchange for the key support of Catalan separatist parties in parliament to secure a new term in office following an inconclusive general election last July.

READ ALSO: Spain’s contested Catalan amnesty bill comes into force

The separatist parties have threatened to withdraw their support for Sánchez’s minority government unless the amnesty is applied.

Catalonia’s High Court said it had decided to “declare the extinction of criminal responsibility” for former Catalan regional interior minister Miquel Buch, as well as to Lluís Escolà, an officer in Catalonia’s regional police force, since the crimes they were convicted of “have been amnestied”.

Buch was sentenced last year to four and a half years in jail for embezzlement and misappropriation for hiring Escolà in 2018 and paying him out of public coffers to act as a bodyguard for the former head of the regional Catalan government, Carles Puigdemont, while he was in self-imposed exile in Belgium.

Escolà was handed a four-year prison sentence for working as Puigdemont’s bodyguard.

Puigdemont fled Spain to avoid arrest shortly after his government led Catalonia’s failed secession push, which involved an independence referendum that was banned by the courts followed by a short-lived declaration of independence.

Spain’s conservative opposition has staged massive street protests against the amnesty law, which judges must decide to apply on a case-by-case basis.

Puigdemont had said he hopes to return to Spain but there is still a warrant for his arrest and a Spanish court continues to investigate him for the alleged crimes of embezzlement and disobedience related to the secession bid.

He also remains under investigation for alleged terrorism over protests in 2019 against the jailing of several referendum leaders that sometimes turned violent.

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