BARCELONA, May 30, 2025 (WAFA) – Barcelona’s City Council on Friday voted to cut institutional ties with the Israeli government and suspend the friendship agreement with the city of Tel Aviv, according to the AFP.

The City Council voted in favor of cutting institutional ties with the Israeli government and suspending its friendship agreement with the city of Tel Aviv, citing violations of international law and the rights of Palestinians.

The motion, supported by the governing Socialist party along with far-left and leftist pro-independence groups, calls for an end to all official relations with Israel "until respect for international law" and the "basic rights of the Palestinian people" are restored.

Barcelona will also suspend a 1998 friendship agreement with Tel Aviv, and it urged the trade fair organizer Fira de Barcelona not to host Israeli government pavilions or companies involved in the arms trade or profiting from Israel's genocidal war on Gaza.

A similar recommendation was made to the Port of Barcelona.

"The suffering and death in Gaza over the past year and a half, and recent attacks by the Israeli government, make any relationship unviable," Barcelona's Mayor Jaume Collboni said during the council session.

It is not the first time Barcelona has moved to suspend ties with Israel. In February 2023, then-mayor Ada Colau cut ties with the twin city, Tel Aviv, due to Israel's apartheid policy towards Palestinians.

By taking this decision, Spain's second-largest city -- a top tourist destination and home to one of the world's best-known football clubs – joins a chorus of voices that have condemned Israel's devastating genocidal war on Gaza, which killed at least 54,321 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 123,770 others.

Barcelona's move comes a year after Spain, Ireland and Norway officially recognised a Palestinian state in a coordinated decision slammed by Israel.

K.F.