MADRID

Spain’s social rights minister urged Saturday that heightened pressure be put on Israel to halt the "planned genocide" in Gaza.

Ione Belarra participated in a march from the Israeli Embassy in Madrid to the US Embassy to protest attacks on the Gaza Strip.

Belarra told reporters that Israel's attacks are a "planned genocide."

"For Israel to stop annihilating the Palestinian people, Spain and European governments must take very urgent measures," she said.

The first step for the new Spanish government should be to sever relations with Israel and join a coalition of countries, led by South Africa, that is attempting to bring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the International Criminal Court (ICC), she said.

"We must stop this barbarism," said Belarra, expressing the urgent need for the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu.

Israel launched airstrikes and later a ground incursion in Gaza after an Oct. 7 surprise attack by the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.

It has since killed more than 12,300 Palestinians, most of them women and children, flattened thousands of civilian structures, and enforced a full blockade resulting in a shortage of supplies such as food, fuel and medicine.

The official Israeli death toll stands at around 1,200.