Ceuta: When Spain Is Caught Up by History

Colonial Spain, Israël, Palestine : the language of occupation

The spectacular migrant influx that has just hit Ceuta is more than another crisis on Europe’s borders. It highlights three issues that should not be considered separately: the vulnerability of Europe’s border with Morocco, the possible use of migration as an instrument of political pressure, and, more fundamentally, the question of sovereignty over Spain’s two enclaves in North Africa.

That last issue inevitably leads to an uncomfortable comparison for Madrid.

Under Pedro Sánchez, Spain has become one of the European countries most critical of Israel, regularly denouncing the “illegal occupation” of Palestinian territories and Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Yet when it comes to Ceuta and Melilla, Madrid invokes precisely what it tends to downplay when discussing Israel: history.

Ceuta: A Border That Vanished Within Hours

On July 30, 2026, tens of thousands of people, primarily Moroccans, entered Ceuta from Morocco within a matter of hours.

The scale was extraordinary. The most recent estimates put the number of entries at approximately 72,000 in 24 hours — nearly equivalent to the population of the Spanish city itself.

Most subsequently returned to Morocco. But the episode left dozens dead, mainly from drowning, while Ceuta was forced to deal with a large number of unaccompanied minors.

How could an external border of the European Union, normally closely monitored on both sides, virtually disappear for several hours and then become controllable again?

The question remains open.

A Court Decision Turned Into a Pull Factor

A few weeks earlier, Spain’s Supreme Court had issued an important ruling concerning migrants attempting to reach Ceuta or Melilla by sea.

The court did not, of course, rule that entering Spain illegally by sea had suddenly become legal.

It did, however, hold that people intercepted at sea could not automatically be subjected to the special “border rejection” procedure applicable to certain attempts to cross the land barriers.

Instead, they must be handled under the ordinary return procedure and receive the legal safeguards that come with it.

The distinction is important in law.

It becomes far less clear when compressed into a few seconds on social media.

Messages quickly circulated in Morocco suggesting that reaching Ceuta by sea would now make it possible to avoid immediate return.

Testimony gathered after the events indicates that this interpretation contributed to the movement.

Spain’s Regularization Program: Beware of Shortcuts

Another piece of information was circulating at the same time: the Sánchez government’s decision to carry out a major regularization of undocumented immigrants.

The measure is real and could affect several hundred thousand people.

But it does not apply to migrants who have just arrived.

Applicants must, among other requirements, demonstrate that they were present in Spain before January 1, 2026.

It would therefore be inaccurate to claim that the regularization program legally opened the door to migrants arriving in Ceuta in July.

Its psychological impact is harder to measure. Between the precise content of a law and the way it is perceived........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)