This file photo pictures US-provided projectiles near an Israeli howitzer. (By AFP)
The Spanish government has scrapped a contract to purchase ammunition rounds for its police force from an Israeli firm amid the Tel Aviv regime's ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
A government source said on Thursday it had decided to stick to its October 2023 commitment not to provide Israeli companies with arms or revenue flows "and nor will it do so in future."
The source said the Israeli company would be denied permission to import the material by the Spanish authorities on "public interest" grounds.
The interior ministry would rescind the contract and government lawyers would respond to any subsequent legal claims, the source added.
The decision came after leftwing junior partners in Spain’s socialist-led coalition government called on the interior ministry to cancel a €6.6 million order for millions of bullets from an Israeli company.
The collation partners said the deal breaches coalition agreements and undermines efforts to hold Israel to account over its actions in Gaza.
“The parties that make up the progressive coalition government are firmly committed to the Palestinian cause and to peace in the Middle East,” government sources said. “That is why Spain will neither buy arms from, nor sell arms to, Israeli companies.”
The purchase includes the acquisition of more than 15 million 9-mm rounds from Israel's IMI Systems.
Spain, a long-time critic of Israel's policies in the occupied Palestinian territories, pledged in October 2023 to stop selling weapons to regime over Tel Aviv’s brutal campaign in Gaza.
The European country last year also widened that commitment to include weapons purchases from Israel.
Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been one of the most outspoken critics of Israel’s conduct during the brutal war in Gaza.
Sánchez’s stance has been reinforced by Spain’s decision last year to formally recognize a Palestinian state, and by the government’s commitment to neither buy weapons from, nor sell weapons to, Israel since the outbreak of aggression against Gaza.
The developments come as Israeli aggression continues to claim the lives of Palestinians across Gaza amid worsening humanitarian crises in the besieged strip.
The Health Ministry said Thursday Gaza's hospitals had received 50 martyrs and more than 150 wounded Palestinians in 24 hours. The systematic Israeli targeting of medical facilities has rendered 37 hospitals non-operational.
The Hamas resistance movement has condemned the atrocities and urged effective measures to halt such attacks.
The Palestinian death toll since the onset of the Israeli military campaign in Gaza has exceeded 51,350.
