Posted on 05/03/2026 1:31:28 PM PDT by Eleutheria5
Spain’s Foreign Ministry has called for the immediate release of a Spanish citizen detained by Israel following the interception of a Gaza-bound flotilla, after an Israeli court extended his detention by two days.
Saif Abu Keshek, a resident of Barcelona, and Brazilian national Thiago Ávila appeared before a court in Ashkelon on Sunday, several days after Israeli forces intercepted multiple vessels attempting to breach Israel’s maritime blockade on Gaza.
The flotilla consisted of dozens of boats carrying activists from numerous countries. Israeli authorities stated that over 170 individuals were removed from the vessels, with Abu Keshek and Ávila transferred to Israel for questioning.
A legal advocacy group representing the two stated that the court approved a two-day extension of their detention without filing formal charges.
A source from Spain’s Foreign Ministry told The Guardian that the Spanish consul in Tel Aviv attended the hearing and described Abu Keshek as being “held illegally." The source added that his next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday and that Spain is demanding his immediate release.
.....
(Excerpt) Read more at israelnationalnews.com ...
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
Hmm, I should hunt down my paella pan and make one.
Thanks for the idea!
Perhaps Spain should try and take them back from Israel?
They’re going to give us the recipe for paella. We’re keeping them. They’re cute.
NATO’s busy discrediting itself. A better punishment would be to keep them in NATO.
“Sounds like a Spanish name to me. Oh, Barcelona, is that a Catalan name?”
Sounds like Spaniards should again learn the names of their cities when the Moors occupied the country.
Screw Spain. Used to be one of my favorite countries in Europe, now they are just Europussies.
Nice!
If the guy had stayed home, there wouldn’t be an issue.
Mess with Israeli affairs, and take what you get.
They’re so dumb, they first cut off diplomatic ties with Israel, and THEN demanded the return of their citizens. They could have kept the diplomatic ties, and waited for this as a pretext to cut off the ties, or to threaten to cut off ties if we didn’t fork over their two village idiots. Now they have zero leverage, so they can ESAD.
I didn’t get to see enough of Europe to have a favorite, though the Athens airport has a nice museum in it, and I really did enjoy my stay in Cyprus two or three years ago. Now you couldn’t pay me to visit any part of it.
Hey Spain,
Seems you screwed the pooch.
Good luck with that.
Get the U.S. out of Spain,Germany,Italy.
Put our troops where they are supported.
Poland.
Putin might have a problem with that. But f@#$ him already. He’s the walking dead.
Put the flotilla Spaniards on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz and dare Spain to retrieve them.
Un montón de mierda de gallina.
EC
I think when they had the train bombing back in 2004 they completely lost their nerve and went belly-up to Islam, then immediately tried to blame it on separatist groups.
Disgusted me then and still disgusts me now.
I used to love Barcelona. The food was incredible. Went to Mallorca on my honeymoon, and went back ten years later.
You can probably tell this really bugged me.
No information in the excerpt about who paid for the boats, or how much the protesters got paid, or who paid for the legal advocacy groups in court.
I tried to read the entire article, but advertising bloat stalled out my computer.
Conservatives need to shake down ALL the news media that cover these Hard Left protest events, but refuse to cover the financial sponsorship issue.
Why not just research the financial sponsorship ourselves. They won’t ever tell the truth about it.
Spain is now yet another of the feckless european loser crowd. Lol! Who cares what “they demand”?
It’s not Ernest Hemingway’s Iberia.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry states that Abu Keshek is suspected of affiliation with the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad (PCPA), which the United States has designated and sanctioned for alleged ties to Hamas
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.