City’s mayor says relationship ‘unviable’; council also votes to end institutional ties with Israeli government
Barcelona’s city council voted Friday to cut institutional ties with the Israeli government and suspend its friendship agreement with the city of Tel Aviv, citing alleged violations of international law and the rights of Palestinians.
The motion, supported by the governing Socialist party along with far-left and leftist pro-independence groups, called for an end to all official relations with Israel “until respect for international law” and the “basic rights of the Palestinian people” are restored.
Barcelona will also suspend a 1998 friendship agreement with the liberal coastal city of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and it urged the trade fair organizer Fira de Barcelona not to host Israeli government pavilions or companies involved in the arms trade or profiting from the conflict in Gaza.
A similar recommendation was made to the Port of Barcelona.
“The suffering and death in Gaza over the past year and a half, and recent attacks by the Israeli government, make any relationship unviable,” Barcelona’s Mayor Jaume Collboni said during the council session.
It was not the first time Barcelona had moved to suspend ties with Israel.
In 2023, then-mayor Ada Colau took similar steps, which were later reversed when Collboni won local elections.
While the move has little practical impact, the decision by Spain’s second-largest city — a top tourist destination and home to one of the world’s best-known football clubs — adds to a growing list of critics of Israel amid the devastating war in Gaza.
Barcelona’s move came a year after Spain, Ireland and Norway officially recognized a Palestinian state in a coordinated decision slammed by Israel.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is one of the most outspoken critics in the European Union of Israel’s military operations in Gaza amid the war sparked by the Hamas terror group’s devastating attack on October 7, 2023.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Content retrieved from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/barcelona-ends-friendship-agreement-with-tel-aviv-over-gaza-war/.
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