Israeli PM faces arrest in Spain over 2010 flotilla raid
A judge in Spain has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and seven other former and current Israeli officials over a 2010 fatal raid by the Tel Aviv regime forces on a Gaza-bound aid ship.
According to reports by Spanish media, the group could be arrested if they set foot on Spanish soil, the Jerusalem Post reported on Saturday.
On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos attacked the Turkish-flagged MV Mavi Marmara that was part of the Freedom Flotilla in the high seas in the Mediterranean Sea, killing nine Turkish citizens and injuring about 50 other people who were part of the team on the six-ship convoy. A 10th died after four years in a coma.
A UN panel that reviewed the case later denounced the Israeli attack on the vessel as “excessive and unreasonable.”
Former Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, Minister of Military Affairs Moshe Ya'alon and Ehud Barak, the former minister of military affairs, former interior minister, Eli Yishai, and former minister of intelligence, Dan Meridor, are among those implicated in the case.
Together with Netanyahu, the officials form the so-called Forum of Seven, which is an ad-hoc committee of ministers that made important decisions on security issues.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, has denounced the judge’s order, with its spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon saying, "We consider it to be a provocation. We are working with the Spanish authorities to get it canceled. We hope it will be over soon."
Last month, the family of one of the victims of the raid, who is an American-Turkish citizen, filed a lawsuit against Barak for the raid.
The flotilla was attempting to break the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, carrying aid to the Palestinians in the impoverished enclave.
Gaza has been blockaded since June 2007, which has caused a decline in the standards of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.
The attack sparked international outcry and plunged relations between Tel Aviv and Ankara into an all-time low at the time.
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