Barcelona city council has voted to “break all institutional relations with the current Israeli government” over the war in Gaza “until respect for international law” and the “basic rights of the Palestinian people” are restored.
The statement on Friday 30 May was signed by the governing Socialist party, which runs the council under the leadership of Mayor Jaume Collboni), together with fellow left-wing factions Comuns and Esquerra Repulicana.
The city also suspended the friendship agreement with Tel Aviv that Collboni restored last year, reversing his predecessor’s decision to sever the twin city arrangement that had been in place since 1998.
The council is now urging the Port of Barcelona and trade show organiser Fira de Barcelona not to host Israeli pavilions or companies involved in weapons trade or profiting from the war against Hamas.
According to Agence France-Presse, Collboni said: “The suffering and death in Gaza over the past year and a half, and recent attacks by the Israeli government, make any relationship unviable.”
In a statement on Saturday, terror organisation Hamas welcomed the city’s decision to “sever ties with the Zionist occupation government and suspend the friendship agreement with the occupying city of Tel Aviv, in solidarity with our Palestinian people who are subjected to a brutal war of extermination.”
