Sánchez names Israel in Ceuta disinfo fight, Jerusalem fires back

Israel’s foreign minister on Monday accused Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of telling a “brazen lie” after Sánchez said Russian and Israeli-linked networks had spread disinformation around last month’s mass migrant crossing from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.

In an interview with Cadena SER, Sánchez said that after July 30–31, rumors and false claims circulated on social media accounts “linked both to Russia and to Israel,” as well as to what he called an “ultra-right international” that uses migration to attack Spain and divide Europe.

He cited analysis by the European External Action Service (EEAS) and said Madrid’s critics were motivated by Spain’s positions on the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza. He also rejected claims that Morocco had orchestrated the surge.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar answered on X: Sánchez “lied again, astonishingly accusing Israel of disseminating misleading information regarding the events in Ceuta.

This is a brazen lie.” Continuing to spread “defamatory lies,” Sa’ar added, would not distract from what he called Sánchez’s “shameful failure” in managing Spain’s own affairs.

The exchange fits a longer collapse in relations. Since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 massacre of Israeli civilians, Sánchez’s government has been among Israel’s sharpest European critics, recognized a Palestinian state, used the word “genocide” about Gaza, and pushed for pressure on Jerusalem in EU forums.

Israel has answered that Madrid recycles false charges, downplays Hamas’s responsibility, and inflames hostility toward Jews.

Sa’ar has previously called Sánchez an antisemite and a liar. Conspiracy theories that Israel itself staged the Ceuta surge, as punishment for Spain’s Gaza policy, already circulated in July, including among some Spanish public figures.

Those claims also lacked demonstrated evidence. What remains is a familiar pattern: a domestic migration shock, a fight over who spread the rumors, and two governments already at war over language, using the episode to hit each other.

Sánchez wants the story to be foreign information warfare plus criminal gangs.

Israel wants it to be a Spanish prime minister who, once again, named Jerusalem without proof. Until the EEAS analysis is published in full, the public cannot judge which description is closer to the facts.