The Defense Commission of Congress faces this Wednesday the debate and vote on the possible extension of the arms and defense products embargo already in force against Israel, so that it also includes police and surveillance material that the Hebrew State may use in Palestine, in the context of its offensive on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The initiative has been proposed by Sumar, ERC, and Bildu.
The Lower House approved the embargo on the purchase and sale of military material with Israel at the beginning of October 2025, after the Government launched it as a measure of pressure on Tel Aviv in the midst of the offensive on the occupied Palestinian territories, an action that the Executive even described as "genocide".
President Pedro Sánchez defended at the time that this consolidated the veto on military trade with Israel that was "de facto" in force since October 7, 2023, the date on which the Hebrew State launched an offensive against Palestine in response to the Hamas massacre.
In 2024, Spain sold material to Israel for 1.45 million euros, although this entire volume was directed "exclusively" to components destined for third countries, such as the Philippines and the United States. During the first half of 2025, no exports to Israel were registered, according to data from the Secretariat of State for Trade.
Since October 7, 2023, Spain has rejected 219 export and import licenses for defense material and dual-use technologies destined for Israel, according to figures from the Secretariat of State for Trade.
The Interministerial Regulatory Board for Foreign Trade of Defense Material and Dual Use (JIMDDU), the competent body in the matter, denied 64 export licenses and four import licenses for defense material to Israel between October 2023 and January 31, 2026. After the formal adoption of the embargo in October, the number of vetoed export and import licenses amounts to 151.
Sumar, ERC, and Bildu intend for the prohibition of transfers to Israel to cover all types of weaponry, equipment, technology, or components that may contribute to "serious violations of International Humanitarian Law or Human Rights," explicitly including police and surveillance material used in Palestine.
These demands are included in their draft resolutions to the "Report on the export of defense material, other material, and dual-use products and technologies" of 2024, which Europa Press has accessed, and which will be put to a vote this Wednesday in the Defense Committee.
The Catalan and Basque pro-independence parties also call for the decision to prevent the transit through Spanish territory of ships and aircraft carrying defense material destined for Israel to be maintained in the next legislature, and for the necessary means and procedures to be provided to ensure the effective compliance with this restriction.
Control of arms exports to the United States and ICE
Sumar, ERC, and Bildu also take advantage of the draft resolutions to the annual report of the Secretariat of State for Trade to urge the Government to continue strengthening the risk assessment and traceability of arms exports, with additional resources and measures to prevent weapons sold to the United States from facilitating or being involved in "serious violations of International Humanitarian Law or Human Rights," both in US territory and in external military operations.
In the same vein, they ask the Secretariat of State for Trade to provide more precise information on end-users in the United States, detailing the recipient military units and federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
ICE is the US agency responsible for mass immigrant detentions and violent raids that ended with the deaths of two US citizens at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis.
ERC and Bildu go further and, in their joint proposals, demand that the Executive reject arms export licenses to ICE and CBP until "impunity ceases" for human rights violations and ICE receives specific training on international norms regarding the use of force and firearms and demonstrates "in practice" that it complies with them.
Likewise, they demand that the JIMDDU not authorize exports of firearms, hunting, and sport shooting weapons to the United States given "the absence of sufficient measures to mitigate the risk of perpetuating the cycle of violence, its high rate of armed violence, the cost, and the human suffering it generates."
In parallel, ERC and Bildu request in their resolutions that the Government accelerate the parliamentary processing of the new Official Secrets Law, currently in the amendment phase in Congress.
Transparency in arms trade and reform of official secrecy
Furthermore, ERC, Bildu, and PNV propose a modification of the Official Secrets Law to lift the reserved nature of the JIMDDU minutes and thus bring more transparency to decisions related to arms trade in Spain.
The three parties also demand that the Executive assume "a more active role" in the promotion and defense of the Ottawa Convention, which prohibits anti-personnel mines, and in the promotion of other international instruments such as the Dublin Convention against cluster bombs or initiatives to curb the development of "killer robots".
Vox and PP: more flexibility with Israel and more limits on Iran
For its part, Vox has submitted other resolution proposals to the Defense Commission regarding the report, focused on lifting restrictions on exports of arms and dual-use material destined for Israel and on promoting a review of the European common position that regulates the control of exports of military technology and equipment, with the aim of facilitating sales.
The PP, on the other hand, proposes urging the JIMDDU to deny administrative authorizations for the export of dual-use products and technologies to Iran, with the intention of preventing operations such as those approved in 2024 to that country, which included detonators and explosives type A, B, and E, among other materials, and reinforcing controls under its competence to ensure compliance with existing embargoes on Iran related to the trade of defense material and internal repression equipment.
In 2024, Spain exported detonators, explosives type A, B, and E, laboratory reagents, and control software to Iran for an amount of 1,331,289 euros, according to the "Report on the export of defense material, other material, and dual-use products and technologies" of 2024. In the same period, three licenses were denied for gasket sets, packaging machines for valves, ball valves, and thermal recorders.
The Government argued that this material was not used in the repression of the protests of late December 2025 derived from the economic crisis that led to the demand to end the regime of Ali Khamenei. That repression caused more than 3,000 demonstrators dead, according to figures recognized by the Iranian authorities themselves.