Spain’s prime minister,
Pedro Sanchez, has accused Benjamin Netanyahu of seeking to
“inflict the same level of damage and destruction” on Lebanon as Israeli forces had wrought on Gaza.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in the two-year war in Gaza, with millions displaced and much of the strip destroyed,
leading to accusations of genocide which Israel has denied.
Speaking to the Spanish parliament earlier today, Sanchez said Israel’s expanded military offence against
Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon was going down a similar path.
“This is not the same scenario as the illegal war in Iraq. We are facing something far worse. Much worse. With a potential impact that is far broader and far deeper,” said Sanchez, who has long been one of the most vocal critics of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Pedro Sanchez addresses the Spanish parliament over the war in the Middle East, as he warned it presented a ‘far worse’ scenario than the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Photograph: Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images
He added that Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was “equally dictatorial and even more bloodthirsty” than his predecessor and father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in US-Israeli strikes at the start of the current conflict.
The US-Israeli war on Iran “is an absolute disaster”, Sanchez said, adding: “And all for what? To undermine international law, destabilise the Middle East, reignite conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon, and bury Gaza under the rubble of oblivion and indifference.”