Barcelona mayor barred from entering Israel

Israel has barred Barcelona mayor Jaume Collboni from entering the country.

The mayor of Barcelona was planning to make his first official trip to the Middle East this weekend and visit Palestine.

Collboni called the veto a "hostile act" and accused the Israeli government of "isolating the Palestinian people" in a post on his social networks.

The Barcelona city council broke institutional relations with the Israeli government, and the renounced the city twinship with Tel Aviv, "until respect for International Law is reestablished" in Palestine in May.

Following the veto on Collboni, the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) has demanded a “forceful” response from the European Union and the suspension of the Association Agreement with Israel.

MEP and vice-president of the European Parliament, Javi López, called for the pact to be suspended “until the massacre” in Gaza stops and “international legality is respected.”

"Man-made" famine in Gaza

The news comes as the United Nations has officially declared a "man-made" famine in Gaza due to Israel's blockade of aid entering the strip. 

The UN warned that they expect deaths due to starvation to "rise exponentially." 

The UN confirmed that according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the situation in Gaza has reached the highest level of the food insecurity scale.

In its report published on Friday, it says the famine is "entirely man-made" and calls for an "immediate response" and a ceasefire.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, said that the situation in Gaza is "a moral indictment and a failure of humanity itself."

"Hunger is not just about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems necessary for human survival," he wrote in a post on X. "People are starving. Children are dying. And those who have a duty to act are failing," he added.