Several anti-Israel accounts posted conspiracy theories over the weekend, blaming Israel for the border disruptions reported in the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla on Thursday, with many citing years-old posts from Yair Netanyahu as “proof” of Israel’s involvement.
Far-right American commentator Candace Owens shared a post made more than seven years ago by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair, where he argued that Israel would not fund “NGOs in [Spain] calling you to give away Ceuta and Melilla, and [Spain] will stop funding NGOs in our country that call us to give away Judea and Samaria.”
In Spain, far-left content creator Ana Alcalde – known as “Gaza Barbie” for her participation in one of the Global Sumud Flotilla activist missions – also began posting content blaming Israel for the current migration crisis in the Spanish cities in Africa while claiming that it was “a plan to take down a progressive government like the one of [Spanish Prime Minister] Pedro Sanchez.”
Her first posts were made hours after the first migrants started to cross the border to Ceuta, and she has continued sharing conspiracy theories that link Netanyahu, Israel, and US President Donald Trump to the crisis.
On the other side of the political spectrum, far-right influencer Alex Jones shared a conspiracy theory saying that “Israel launched an Islamic invasion of Spain,” while he also claimed that the US was “backing Netanyahu’s plan to launch an Islamic invasion of Spain from Morocco.”
Moroccan police pushed migrants into crossing the border, The New York Times reports
Conspiracy theorists were not the only ones hinting at the possibility that the situations in Ceuta and Melilla were encouraged or organized by foreign actors, with The New York Times reporting that several migrants were influenced by the Moroccan police to cross the border.
According to the report, Moroccan migrants present at the scene flocked to the border after seeing social media posts calling for people to gather there.
They were also reportedly urged by the police to cross the border, with one of the migrants interviewed recalling that officers told him, “Come to Spain.”
The interviewed migrant, called Mohammed Ahmidho, also said that the people from Morocco were not welcomed in Spain, even though many went there looking to work.
“They had nothing for us,” he said. “They were screaming, ‘Get out of Spain.’”
Pedro Sanchez calls Ceuta situation an 'attack on Spain’s territorial integrity'
Sanchez said on Friday while he was visiting Ceuta that the situation in the Spanish enclaves in North Africa was an “attack on Spain’s territorial integrity.”
Later, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska blamed people-smuggling networks for exploiting vulnerable migrants and spreading misleading interpretations of a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling that migrants intercepted at sea cannot be summarily returned in the absence of a physical barrier.
“Morocco isn’t any threat to Ceuta or the rest of Spain – it’s a fully reliable partner,” he said, adding there had been no intelligence indicating a mass entry was imminent.
By Saturday, Spanish authorities said that most migrants had turned back to Morocco, while crossings into its North African enclave of Ceuta had stopped overnight.
Spanish police also began installing a 500-meter floating barrier on Saturday off its border with Morocco following the mass rush that killed at least 67 people.
Reuters contributed to this report.