Madrid, November 22 (RHC)-- Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has removed Ione Belarra, minister for social rights from the Cabinet, after she harshly criticized the West’s “deafening silence” on Israel’s war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
Sánchez, who was reelected last week to lead the country, unveiled the new Cabinet for his progressive coalition government on Monday. He substituted Belarra with Pablo Bustinduy. Through her social media pages, Belarra has unequivocally called for an end to Israel’s horrendous war crimes in the besieged coastal strip and sought the intervention of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In the latest post on X, formerly Twitter, she said the ICC has “finally opened an investigation into war crimes in Gaza,” hoping that the body “acts quickly and decisively” to end the Gaza genocide.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, she criticized “a deafening silence of so many countries and so many political leaders who could do something,” to end the war on Gaza. “I speak about what I know well, which is the European Union. It seems the display of hypocrisy which the European Commission is showing is unacceptable.”
She also reiterated that the regime of Israel was committing “planned genocide against the Palestine people.”
“Why can we give lessons in human rights in other conflicts and not here when the world is watching in horror? “The deaths of thousands of children, the mothers desperately shouting because they are witnessing the killing of their children.”
Belarra called on Madrid and other EU countries to break diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv since the regime launched its relentless air and ground attacks against the besieged Palestinian territory, which have killed more than 13,300 people, including over 5,500 children, in six weeks.
The European Union and the United States have so far failed to publically denounce the regime’s grave violations against Palestinians. Spain is one of the EU member states where public support for the Palestinian cause is overwhelming, according to a recent survey conducted by YouGov, a market research and public opinion company.
