Spanish PM Sánchez: Russia, Israel spread fake news to fuel Ceuta migrant surge
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Monday accused digital platforms and accounts with ties to Russia and Israel of orchestrating an online disinformation campaign following a surge of migrant arrivals into the North African enclave of Ceuta in late July.
- World
- DPA
- Published Date: 06:05 PM 31 August 2026
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has accused social media networks with "links to Russia and Israel" of amplifying disinformation following the mass influx of migrants into the North African enclave of Ceuta at the end of July.
The European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU's diplomatic arm, had informed the Spanish government of this, Sánchez said in an interview with the Spanish Broadcasting Company (SER) published on Monday.
He added that if both countries were interfering in the matter, it was not out of concern for the migrants, but because Spain had condemned Israel's "genocide" in the Gaza Strip and Russia's war against Ukraine.
Israel called the accusation "a brazen lie."
Sánchez also blamed an "international far-right movement" that he said always uses the topic of migration "to attack and divide not only Spain but also Europe."
It was not known whether he was also referring to Elon Musk, who on July 31 posted a clip from the apocalyptic thriller "World War Z" on his platform X. The clip shows a scene in which a horde of infected people overrun a protective wall around Jerusalem. Musk also claimed that Sánchez could ruin Spain by attracting billions of poorer people.
On July 30 and 31, around 72,000 migrants swam from Morocco to Ceuta or climbed over border fences, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said.
Most returned within hours. However, around 5,000 migrants were still in the territory as of Friday, the minister said. Of those, 1,200 were minors, Sánchez said.
Some local residents have been staging increasingly violent protests against the presence of so many migrants, who have been in the small territory for weeks, putting the Sánchez government under considerable pressure.
Sánchez's accusations against actors in Russia fit into a broader pattern of warnings that Moscow has been waging a hybrid war against the West for years in order to destabilize democratic societies. Hybrid warfare is understood to mean a combination of military, economic, intelligence and propaganda means, including the manipulation of public opinion through disinformation and state-directed cyberattacks.
Russia had previously rejected accusations - also voiced by other politicians in the EU - that pro-Russian forces had inflamed the situation in Ceuta as part of alleged hybrid warfare, calling them an unsubstantiated flight of fancy.
Another instrument of hybrid warfare is the deliberate exploitation of migration: Poland, Latvia and Lithuania have accused Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko of deliberately bringing migrants to the EU's external border since 2021, in order to put pressure on the West.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar accused Sánchez of "lying shamelessly" in a post on X that he repeated in Spanish, Hebrew and English.
"Continuing to spread defamatory lies will not distract from Sánchez's disgraceful failure to manage his country's affairs" Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar posted on X.
Relations between Spain and Israel have deteriorated considerably in recent years. Spain is one of Israel's harshest European critics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
Sánchez has accused Israel of "genocide" in the Gaza Strip and criticized the current US-Israeli strikes on Iran as a violation of international law.
Spain has also imposed sanctions on Israel and recognized Palestine as a state.
The diplomatic tensions led both countries to recall their ambassadors. In addition to the Gaza conflict, Spain also criticizes Israel's illegal settlement of the West Bank.
In the SER interview, Sánchez also stressed that the Spanish government could only act on the basis of data and verified facts.
"What we know so far is that a ruling by the Supreme Court of July 8 was distorted, which was spread on social networks through fake news, disinformation and also by criminal organizations that traffic in people," Sánchez said. He said the false reports had claimed the court had ruled that anyone who reached Ceuta by swimming could not be deported - but that was not the case.
Morocco had cooperated "immediately" and fully with the Spanish authorities during the crisis, he said.
Morocco, however, claims both Spanish exclaves on its territory - Ceuta and Melilla - for itself and had already in 2021 allowed thousands of migrants to reach Ceuta without hindrance.
The European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU's diplomatic arm, had informed the Spanish government of this, Sánchez said in an interview with the Spanish Broadcasting Company (SER) published on Monday.
He added that if both countries were interfering in the matter, it was not out of concern for the migrants, but because Spain had condemned Israel's "genocide" in the Gaza Strip and Russia's war against Ukraine.
Israel called the accusation "a brazen lie."
Sánchez also blamed an "international far-right movement" that he said always uses the topic of migration "to attack and divide not only Spain but also Europe."
It was not known whether he was also referring to Elon Musk, who on July 31 posted a clip from the apocalyptic thriller "World War Z" on his platform X. The clip shows a scene in which a horde of infected people overrun a protective wall around Jerusalem. Musk also claimed that Sánchez could ruin Spain by attracting billions of poorer people.
On July 30 and 31, around 72,000 migrants swam from Morocco to Ceuta or climbed over border fences, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said.
Most returned within hours. However, around 5,000 migrants were still in the territory as of Friday, the minister said. Of those, 1,200 were minors, Sánchez said.
Some local residents have been staging increasingly violent protests against the presence of so many migrants, who have been in the small territory for weeks, putting the Sánchez government under considerable pressure.
Sánchez's accusations against actors in Russia fit into a broader pattern of warnings that Moscow has been waging a hybrid war against the West for years in order to destabilize democratic societies. Hybrid warfare is understood to mean a combination of military, economic, intelligence and propaganda means, including the manipulation of public opinion through disinformation and state-directed cyberattacks.
Russia had previously rejected accusations - also voiced by other politicians in the EU - that pro-Russian forces had inflamed the situation in Ceuta as part of alleged hybrid warfare, calling them an unsubstantiated flight of fancy.
Another instrument of hybrid warfare is the deliberate exploitation of migration: Poland, Latvia and Lithuania have accused Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko of deliberately bringing migrants to the EU's external border since 2021, in order to put pressure on the West.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar accused Sánchez of "lying shamelessly" in a post on X that he repeated in Spanish, Hebrew and English.
"Continuing to spread defamatory lies will not distract from Sánchez's disgraceful failure to manage his country's affairs" Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar posted on X.
Relations between Spain and Israel have deteriorated considerably in recent years. Spain is one of Israel's harshest European critics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
Sánchez has accused Israel of "genocide" in the Gaza Strip and criticized the current US-Israeli strikes on Iran as a violation of international law.
Spain has also imposed sanctions on Israel and recognized Palestine as a state.
The diplomatic tensions led both countries to recall their ambassadors. In addition to the Gaza conflict, Spain also criticizes Israel's illegal settlement of the West Bank.
In the SER interview, Sánchez also stressed that the Spanish government could only act on the basis of data and verified facts.
"What we know so far is that a ruling by the Supreme Court of July 8 was distorted, which was spread on social networks through fake news, disinformation and also by criminal organizations that traffic in people," Sánchez said. He said the false reports had claimed the court had ruled that anyone who reached Ceuta by swimming could not be deported - but that was not the case.
Morocco had cooperated "immediately" and fully with the Spanish authorities during the crisis, he said.
Morocco, however, claims both Spanish exclaves on its territory - Ceuta and Melilla - for itself and had already in 2021 allowed thousands of migrants to reach Ceuta without hindrance.
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