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Israel expels Spain from Gaza civil-military center over criticism of Lebanon massacres

April 13, 2026

srael will expel Spain from the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), established to oversee an internationalized, post-war occupation of Gaza, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announced on 10 April.

Saar said the decision was based on what he claimed was the Spanish government’s “anti-Israel bias” amid its criticism of Israel’s wars on Lebanon and Iran.

According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the move was taken “against the backdrop of the anti-Israel obsession of the Spanish government headed by [Pedro] Sanchez and serious harm to the interests of Israel and also the US.”

Israeli officials said a formal notice was sent to Spain. The US, whose personnel lead the CMCC in the town of Kiryat Gat near the Gaza border, was informed in advance.

“The Sanchez government has such a blatant anti-Israel bias that it has lost all ability to serve as a helpful factor in implementing [US] President Trump’s Peace Plan and in the CMCC operating within the framework of the plan,” the foreign minister said.

About 20 countries have troops or civilian staff stationed at the CMCC, alongside roughly 40 international organizations.

The CMCC was established by US President Donald Trump following a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel reached in October. Six months later, Israel still occupies over half of Gaza and continues to kill Palestinians.

At the same time, the reconstruction allegedly envisioned by the CMCC has not begun, and the amount of aid entering the strip remains woefully low, including a sharp drop following the start of the Iran war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commented on the move, saying that countries that “wage a diplomatic war” against Israel will pay “an immediate price.”

The decision comes as Spain has sharply criticized Israel’s brutal bombing of Lebanon and its broader war with Iran in partnership with the US.

The Israeli army launched a massive wave of brutal and deadly airstrikes on the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on the afternoon of 8 April, hours after rejecting the inclusion of Lebanon in a newly announced ceasefire initiative to end the war with Iran.

Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said that warplanes carried out a large-scale bombing across Beirut, the Bekaa, and southern Lebanon, targeting at least 100 sites in 10 minutes. The barbaric strikes killed at least 254 Lebanese, including 33 children.

In response, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares accused Israel of breaking the ceasefire. Albares described the Israeli war on Lebanon and Iran as “the greatest assault on the civilization built upon the humanist ideals of reason, peace, understanding, and universal law over the abuse of power, brute force, and arbitrariness.”

To show Spain’s opposition to the US and Israeli wars, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez closed Spanish airspace to US aircraft participating in the war and called on the EU to suspend its association agreement with Israel. He also reopened Madrid’s embassy in Iran.

Netanyahu’s “contempt for life and international law is intolerable,” Sanchez wrote on X after Wednesday’s attacks.