Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called on the international community to stop selling weapons to Israel, after a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican, AFP reports.

“I do believe that it is urgent that, in light of everything that is happening in the Middle East, the international community stops exporting weapons to the government of Israel,” he told reporters.

“This is an appeal that I will make … to the entire international community,” he said, adding that it was important “not to contribute in one way or another to the escalation of violence and to the war and its expansion in Gaza, the West Bank or, in this case, to Lebanon”.