Diplomatic tensions flared between Spain and Israel on Friday after Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon slammed the Spanish government for its handling of the country’s migrant crisis, prompting backlash in Madrid and a public rebuke from Israel’s top diplomat in Spain.

“Spain, which never misses an opportunity to lecture Israel, has declared a state of emergency in Ceuta following the crisis over its immigration policy,” Danon wrote on X. “Maybe before it continues lecturing us, it’s time it explained to the world why it still maintains colonial enclaves in Africa.”

His remarks came after tens of thousands of migrants illegally crossed the border from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa.

Spain’s Interior Ministry said on Friday that around 50,000 people had entered Ceuta since Thursday morning, and estimated that nearly all of them, 48,000, had already turned and gone back. The Spanish government’s representative in Ceuta said 57 bodies of people killed during the incident had been recovered on the Spanish side of the border and that there could be additional casualties on the Moroccan side. ‌It said some drowned and some were crushed while trying to climb the breakwater that holds the border fence.

Spanish Transportation Minister Óscar Puente Santiago responded to Danon’s post directly, writing, “Well, things are starting to get pretty clear.”

Though vague, Puente’s remark was largely interpreted as supporting the growing conspiracy theory that Israel and the United States helped orchestrate the large-scale migrant incursion, despite no public evidence supporting the........

© The Times of Israel