Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the West was guilty of “double standards” regarding the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, the AFP news agency reports.

Washington, July 11 (RHC)-- Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the West was guilty of “double standards” regarding the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, the AFP news agency reports.
  
“If we are telling our people that we are supporting Ukraine because we are defending international law, this is the same to what we have to do towards Gaza,” Sanchez said at NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington, DC, on Wednesday.

The West required a “consistent political position” in which “we don’t have double standards.”  Sanchez also said the world needed to press to “stop this terrible humanitarian crisis” affecting the Palestinians and called for an international peace conference to push for a Palestinian state.  “We need to create the conditions for an immediate and urgent ceasefire,” he said, adding that there is a serious risk of escalation in Lebanon.

Sanchez has already infuriated Israel’s right-wing government by recently recognizing Palestinian statehood and has criticised Israel’s conduct in its war on Gaza.

Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip has largely been reduced to sand and rubble, says Muhannad Hadi, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory.  Hadi was in Khan Younis for a rare visit from an outside official to the besieged enclave on Tuesday, and says every building he saw there was damaged in some way.

Hadi said many of the women he spoke to said they had cut off their hair, as “extreme overcrowding” in temporary shelters and tent camps was leading to the spread of lice.

Last week, Israel ordered the forced displacement of 250,000 Palestinians from eastern Khan Younis,  according to UN estimates.