"The Spain-Israel arms relationship is more prosperous than ever," warns the Delàs Center.

Pedro Sánchez's government has been one of the most critical of the EU and NATO governments with Israel and its genocidal offensive against the Gaza Strip, which it launched after the Palestinian attacks of October 7, 2023. After Israel and its leaders were accused in international courts of engineering an embargo de facto halting arms sales operations with Tel Aviv. But according to a report report that was made public this afternoon According to the Delàs Center for Peace Studies, "the bulk of arms relations between Spain and Israel have not only been maintained but are more vibrant, abundant, and lucrative than ever" since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1986. International treaties signed by Spain and the EU prohibit exports for committing war crimes. However, the report finds that the Spanish government has carried out at least 134 arms sales in Israel since October 7, 2023. Until now, only 46 of these transactions were known to exist.

Analyzing public data on the arms trade (an area largely protected by state secrecy), the report finds that "far from being contained, these relations are prosperous, with more contracts awarded, for a higher economic value, and with greater business collaboration between the two countries." The report notes that "never before have so many Spanish companies or companies based in Spain developed so many joint projects with Israeli companies" and never before has "the Spanish Ministry of Defense awarded so many contracts to Israeli industry." This is what emerges from the data from official agencies, although the Sánchez government continues to claim the opposite, something that has generated tensions between the PSOE and Sumar.

The first thing the researchers have found is that the data does not add up. Israel claims to have imported weapons and ammunition worth €5.3 million from Spain between October 7, 2023, and March of this year. This is five times the amount recorded for Spanish exports under the same code, 93. If we look at the latest available data, which correspond to the first half of 2024 (export data is usually published with a one-year lag), both Tel Aviv and Madrid agree that Spain has exported weapons and ammunition to Israel. These exports would have occurred at a time when the Israeli army had already killed more than 30,000 people in Gaza and after South Africa brought Israel before the UN International Court of Justice for the crime of genocide, a gesture that had the political support of the Spanish government. In January 2024, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares declared that since October 7, 2023, there had not been "any arms sales to Israel" in Spain. Alejandro Pozo, author of the report, told ARA that "there are too many questions" and said that "the Spanish government should provide explanations."

According to official records, the Nammo factory in Palencia exported up to 12,260 units of 30mmx 173 caliber ammunition to Elbit Systems, Israel's largest arms manufacturer, in November 2023. When questioned by the press, the Spanish government claimed that this ammunition was for "testing and demonstrations." In other cases, the Spanish government has admitted to exporting military equipment to Israel but asserted that it was "non-lethal," a term it has not used in any of the other hundred countries to which Spain has authorized arms sales.

But official data not only confirms that Spain has continued exporting weapons to Israel during the genocide in Gaza, but above all, that it has continued purchasing weapons from it. Israel, a relatively small country, has one of the most powerful and developed military industries in the world and exports its "battle-tested" production from the laboratory in the occupied Palestinian territories far and wide. This is one of the keys to maintaining its war machine: between 70% and 80% of its production is destined for export, revenues that serve to finance the war against the Palestinians. Without taking into account other items, only under the headings of ammunition (code 93) and armored vehicles (code 87.10), the Delàs Center had never recorded a volume of imports from Israeli military companies such as that recorded during the genocide in Gaza. "What the Spanish government says does not correspond to what it does," Pozo points out.

Between October 2023 and February 2025, Spain imported weapons and ammunition valued at more than €15 million from Israel, and armored vehicles worth €21.6 million, according to official databases analyzed by the Delàs Center. This is the highest import figure recorded so far, and does not include the total for defense material. Regarding the awarding of public procurement contracts to Israeli military companies or their subsidiaries, the Delàs Center had already announced that they have been recorded. 46 contracts from Spanish institutions worth 1.044 billion euros, most of them to Elbit Systems and Rafael, Israel's second-largest arms manufacturer. And these are war materials, such as SILAM rocket launchers, Spike missiles, and laser systems for fighter jets.

The companies, "as if nothing had happened"

While Benjamin Netanyahu orders the razing of Gaza, the Spanish military industry also benefits from its collaboration agreements with Israeli military companies. One of the most shocking cases is that of the Santa Bárbara company, which exported 18 armored vehicles, valued at around €43 million, to Israel for Elbit Systems to install a command and control tower and a cannon, and subsequently exported them to the Philippines, then under the Rodrigo Duterte regime, and today under the regime of Rodrigo Duterte.

Israel was the second-largest exporter to the Philippines between 2020 and 2024, when Duterte made no secret of his fascination with the Netanyahu government and its atrocities related to Gaza. "The collaboration with the Israeli company opened the doors of the Philippine market to this Spanish company to arm a government that committed war crimes," Pozo points out. "The Spanish military industry is also benefiting from the war in Gaza," he concludes, since Santa Bárbara would have been hard put to sell its weapons in the Philippines if it weren't through Israel, which demonstrates its destructive power in Gaza. The data confirms that the Spanish military industry "continues to cooperate with the Israeli industry as if nothing had happened in Gaza, as if it were working with companies from France or Norway," the researcher adds.

Traffic through Spanish ports and airports

Spanish ports and airports also play an important role in the shipment of weapons manufactured in the United States or EU countries to Israel, a situation that has increased with the genocide in Gaza. This trafficking is subject to official authorization, and the government has assured that it would not allow further stopovers, but the Delàs Center notes that "with or without authorization, these stopovers have continued to occur frequently," both at the NATO base in Rota and in the transfers at the port of Algeciras, where the weapons are unloaded via Mediterranean ladders in Valencia or Barcelona. Ships from Asia, unable to cross the Red Sea due to Houthi attacks, bypass Africa to enter through the Strait of Gibraltar and continue their route to Israel via the Mediterranean. Ships loaded with fuel for Israeli aviation have also passed through Spanish ports. Zaragoza and Rota airports have also been used for air traffic of military materiel to Israel.