Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said on Monday that the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Lebanon have been living for a year a "tragedy that threatens the stability of the Mediterranean region as a result of the Israeli aggression."

This came during his speech, followed by Anadolu Agency, at the opening of the Ninth Regional Forum of Foreign Ministers of the "Union for the Mediterranean" countries, which is being held in the Spanish city of Barcelona.

Albares said: "Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon have been living a tragedy for about a year that threatens the stability of the Mediterranean region."

He added: "We agree that the Palestinian Authority must work to achieve stability in all Palestinian territory (...) and begin the reconstruction of Gaza urgently in response to the humanitarian disaster there."

Referring to the Israeli attacks on it, Albares spoke about seeking to "strengthen the UNIFIL peacekeeping forces, which are exposed to threats and suffer from the non-implementation of international laws, while the decisions of the International Court of Justice are not implemented or respected."

For his part, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, recalled that "the European Union called for an end to the cycles of action and reaction (between Israel on the one hand and Iran and resistance factions in Palestine, Lebanon and Yemen)."

He also stressed the Union's demand to "stop the Israeli war on Lebanon and condemned its army's strikes against UNIFIL forces."

Borrell added: "We express our concern and commitment to exert more pressure to end the dramatic situation in Gaza, where the most serious humanitarian crisis since World War II."

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, along with Borrell, will co-chair the forum.

The organization includes 43 countries, namely Turkey, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Monaco, Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, and Mauritania, in addition to the 27 European Union countries.