Spain has scrapped a €6.6m (£5.7m) order for millions of bullets from an Israeli company after the junior partners in its coalition government denounced it as a “flagrant breach” of the alliance agreement that jeopardised the country’s sustained efforts to hold Israel accountable for its actions in Gaza.
The country’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been one of the most outspoken critics of Israel’s conduct during the war in Gaza, questioning whether it is following international humanitarian law and calling the number of Palestinian deaths “truly unbearable”.
Sánchez’s rhetoric has been reinforced by Spain’s decision last year to formally recognise a Palestinian state, and by the government’s commitment to neither buy weapons from, nor sell weapons to, Israel since the outbreak of the conflict in Gaza that began with Hamas’s attacks on October 7 2023.
On Wednesday, however, it emerged that Spain’s interior ministry wanted the purchase of 15.3m rounds of 9mm ammunition from the Israeli company IMI Systems to go ahead because the the contract was too far advanced and too expensive to cancel. The ministry also said the cancellation of the contract would leave the Guardia Civil police force without the bullets they needed to fulfil their duties.
News that the contract was proceeding drew a furious response from the leftwing Sumar platform, which was founded by Yolanda Díaz, Spain’s labour minister and one of the country’s three deputy prime ministers. Sumar called for the immediate cancellation of the contract, while the leader of the platform’s United Left group said he and his colleagues would not tolerate “any part of the executive financing a genocidal state”. Israel denies allegations of genocide, which are being reviewed by the International Court of Justice in a case first brought by South Africa.
The arms deal had driven another wedge between the socialists and Sumar, who were already divided over Sánchez’s plans to invest €10.5bn to enable Spain to reach its long-delayed Nato commitment of spending 2% of its GDP on defence. Díaz’s platform has described the move as “incoherent” and “absolutely exorbitant”.
On Thursday morning, the offices of Sánchez and Díaz said the contract would be unilaterally cancelled and that an import licence for the ammunition would be denied. Announcing the scrapping of the deal, the government said “all paths of negotiation” had been exhausted over the issue, adding that legal advice was being sought over the matter.
“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 sources added that any unfulfilled arms orders from Israel placed before October 7 2023 would not proceed.
