MADRID

Spain's left-wing opposition Podemos party accused the government of hypocrisy regarding arms sales to Israel. 

Deliberating on a report by the Delas Center for Peace Studies that examined arms exports to Israel in 2022-23, the party's leader Ione Belarra argued that arms exports to Israel from Spain since Oct. 7, 2023, reached €1.27 billion ($1.37 billion).

These facts contradict Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's and Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares' claims that no arms sales to Israel have occurred since the beginning of Israeli army attacks on the Gaza Strip last October, she added.

In her comments on social media, Belarra said, "I have no words to describe the shame I feel about the hypocrisy of the Spanish Government."

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian group Hamas.

Nearly 38,200 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and nearly 88,000 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Nine months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.