Spain and Belgium deplore Israel’s killing of thousands in Gaza

“Violence will only lead to more violence, ” Sanchez told reporters on Friday, while visiting the Egyptian side of Gaza’s Rafah crossing. He also called for the “recognition by the international community and Israel of the state of Palestine.”

Sanchez and Alexander De Croo, the prime minister of Belgium, earlier met Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sissi for talks in Cairo.

Gaza’s Hamas government estimates that Israel has killed around 15,000 people, two-thirds of them women and children.

Israel says Hamas has killed around 1,200 people, almost of all them Israelis and most of them civilians.

“The destruction of Gaza is unacceptable. We cannot accept that a society is being destroyed the way it is being destroyed,“ De Croo told reporters.

He added that Israel’s response to the deadly Hamas attack on the Gaza Strip on October 7 must “respect international humanitarian law”.

“The deaths of civilians must stop”, he insisted.

UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestine Refugees, tweeted that nearly 80% of Gazans have been uprooted from their homes since Israel invaded.

Pedro Sanchez said the European Union, the Arab League, the Organization for Islamic Cooperation had called for an international peace conference to be held as soon as possible to find a solution to the conflict.

Later on Friday Israel summoned the ambassadors of Belgium and Spain for a “severe reprimand”, after their heads of government denounced from Egypt “the destruction of Gaza” and called on Israel to “recognise the State of Palestine”.

The head of Israeli diplomacy, Eli Cohen, “gave the order to summon the ambassadors of these countries for a conversation of severe reprimand”, his office announced. According to him, the two leaders “support terrorism”.

In a separate statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “strongly condemned” their remarks, accusing them of failing to “hold Hamas fully responsible for the crimes against humanity it has committed by massacring our citizens and using Palestinians as human shields”.

Since the start of the war on 7 October, Belize and Bolivia have broken off diplomatic relations with Israel. Turkey, Colombia, Chile and Honduras have recalled their ambassadors for consultations.

At the end of November, Israel recalled its ambassador to South Africa, following Pretoria’s recall of all its diplomats posted in Israel.