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Hamas supporter appointed minister in Spanish government

Palestinian-Spaniard Sira Rego, who defended the October 7 atrocities as “resistance,” will be country’s first Youth and Children minister.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez appointed a Palestinian-Spaniard who defended Hamas’ atrocities on October 7 as legitimate “resistance” to be the first Arab female minister in the country’s history Tuesday.

Sira Rego, who grew up in Anata near Jerusalem, and whose brother and father still live there, was granted the newly-created position of Minister of Youth and Children.

On the day Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, massacring 1,200 men, women, children and babies, the vast majority of them civilians, and taking 240 hostage, including infants and the elderly, Rego posted a picture featuring a Palestinian flag and a slingshot.

Over the picture, she wrote, “Palestine has the right to resist after decades of occupation, apartheid, and displacement. In the face of those advocating collective punishment through the bombardment of Gaza, it is crucial to defend international law. The only solution is ending the occupation.”

The self-described champion of women’s and human rights was seemingly not fazed by the proof Israel has presented that Hamas war crimes that day included the burning alive of whole families, the beheading of infants, and the brutal rape and murder of dozens of women and girls.

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She has also called Israel’s legitimate bombardment of Hamas military targets a “genocide,” ignoring the fact that the terror organization hides its men, tunnel networks and rockets among the civilian Gazan population, which is internationally considered a war crime as well.

Spain is one of the most critical countries of Israel in the European Union. After some members of the government made anti-Israel comments on the war early on and the Israeli embassy in Madrid called them out for their “shameful” statements “align[ing] themselves with ISIS-like terrorism,” Rego reacted angrily.

“Nobody here has defended Hamas,” she wrote. “You have been exterminating a people for 75 years.”

She also reposted statements such as “the entire Israeli diplomatic delegation must be expelled from the Spanish State” and those calling Israel “undemocratic and corrupt.”

Rego had previously served as a member of the European Parliament since 2019, as part of a Left-Green bloc in the plenum.

There, she was one of only 21 of 705 MEPs who, twelve days into the war, voted against a condemnation of “Hamas’ despicable terrorist attacks against Israel” and called for the immediate release of all the hostages while recognizing Israel’s right to self-defense.

This, despite the resolution evenhandedly also expressing “serious concern over the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip” and warning Israel to “strictly comply with international humanitarian law,” and differentiate “between the Palestinian people… and the Hamas terrorist group.”

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Fighting Online Antisemitism, an Israeli NPO, called on Sánchez to rescind his appointment due to Rego’s “support for terrorism.”