By Reza Talebi | Guest Commentary
Reza Talebi is a researcher at Leipzig University's Department of Oriental Studies and Religious Studies. He has 17 years of journalism experience across Iran, Azerbaijan, Türkiye and Germany, and holds a PhD in International Law and an MA in International Relations. A former Air Force captain and engineer with flight experience, his research focuses on security, international relations, Iranian politics and Islamic political thought. He is the author and translator of 28 books in Turkish, Persian, English and Arabic.
Written for Bosphorus News XTRA.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Bosphorus News.
●●●
The events that unfolded around Ceuta on July 30 should not be read as an isolated migration crisis.
They were the latest expression of a much wider struggle involving Morocco, Spain, Algeria, the United States, Israel, Britain and the European Union, at a moment when the Strait of Gibraltar has acquired greater strategic weight because of instability at the eastern entrances to the Mediterranean.
What began as a growing flow of Moroccan migrants became a mass crossing after people swam around the Tarajal breakwater, climbed the border fence and entered Ceuta. Spanish security personnel described Moroccan forces as largely passive, while reception centers inside the autonomous city were rapidly overwhelmed.
The precise number of arrivals remains disputed. Local authorities issued estimates ranging from the tens of thousands, while confirmed deaths in the strait continued to rise. Whatever the final count, the political meaning of the episode was already clear: Spain had lost effective control of the border for a period long enough to demonstrate how vulnerable Ceuta remains when Moroccan enforcement is withdrawn.
The central question is therefore not simply how the crossing took place, but why it happened at this moment.
Three explanations, one crisis
Three explanations have emerged, and they are not mutually exclusive.
The first is that Morocco deliberately used migration as an instrument of pressure.
Spanish security officials compared the episode with the crisis of May 2021, when thousands crossed into Ceuta after Spain admitted Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali for medical treatment. In both cases, Rabat did not need to openly order a mass movement. It merely had to reduce enforcement and allow pressure that already existed to reach the border.
This time, two political developments may have contributed to Moroccan anger.
The first was a Spanish parliamentary initiative concerning nationality rights for Sahrawis born during the period of Spanish rule in Western Sahara. Rabat could interpret such a measure as implicit recognition of Sahrawi political rights and therefore as a challenge to Morocco's sovereignty claim.
The second was Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's July meeting with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. Morocco and Algeria have had no diplomatic relations since 2021, and Madrid's attempt to deepen energy ties with Algiers while maintaining its support for Morocco's Western Sahara autonomy plan was bound to be viewed in Rabat as strategic hedging.
The second explanation lies inside Spain.
A June ruling by the Spanish Supreme Court held that immediate "hot returns" could not be applied in the same way to migrants who reached Ceuta or Melilla by swimming because they had not crossed a physical border barrier. Once published, the judgment circulated widely on Moroccan social media and was interpreted by many young people as a legal opening.
Videos explaining how to reach Ceuta spread through messaging platforms, while groups of would-be migrants reportedly began gathering near Castillejos, the Moroccan town opposite the Spanish enclave.
The court ruling may therefore have created the expectation that a successful crossing would make immediate expulsion more difficult.
The third explanation is the official account promoted by both Madrid and Rabat: criminal networks exploited the ruling and encouraged young Moroccans to attempt the crossing.
That explanation is convenient for both governments. Spain can avoid openly accusing Morocco of hostile action, while Rabat can deny any role in the crisis and present itself as a partner against trafficking.
Yet the three explanations can operate simultaneously. A legal opening can create demand, criminal networks can facilitate movement and Moroccan inaction can transform a dispersed flow into a mass event.
This combination is what makes migration such an effective instrument of hybrid pressure. It requires no written order, leaves little direct evidence and allows the state applying pressure to deny responsibility.
The strategic value of inaction
Morocco does not need to physically force migrants toward Ceuta to influence Spain.
Its most effective tool is control over enforcement.
When Moroccan security personnel actively patrol the coastline and approaches to the border, movement can be contained. When that control is relaxed, thousands can gather within a short period. The pressure can then be reduced just as quickly, leaving Madrid to guess what political concession may be required to restore cooperation.
This creates a form of action through inaction.
The state does not openly attack the border. It simply allows social and economic pressure to move toward it.
The timing added symbolic weight. The mass crossing coincided with Throne Day, marking the anniversary of King Mohammed VI's accession. Whether this was planned or accidental, the coincidence reinforced the perception that the episode carried a political message.
The most revealing development will be what happens next.
If Moroccan forces restore control without any public agreement, it will suggest that Rabat has already delivered its warning. If the crossings continue, the crisis will probably end through a quiet bilateral understanding in which Spain offers something in return for renewed border enforcement.
The future of the Sahrawi nationality initiative may provide the clearest indication of whether such a price has been paid.
Why Gibraltar matters more now
Ceuta cannot be separated from the Strait of Gibraltar.
The strait is the only natural maritime connection between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean. It is one of the world's busiest shipping passages and has become even more important as the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb face growing instability.
When shipping companies divert vessels around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the Red Sea, the western entrance to the Mediterranean becomes more important to European supply chains, port traffic and energy security.
Spain's LNG infrastructure also gives the area additional weight. The country operates a major share of the European Union's regasification capacity, while pipelines and shipping routes across the western Mediterranean connect Europe with North African energy producers.
The wider port cluster around Gibraltar includes Algeciras, TangerMed, Sines, Valencia and Las Palmas. Among them, Morocco's TangerMed has emerged as the dominant container hub on the southern side of the strait.
This gives Rabat an important economic interest in stability, but also considerable strategic leverage.
Morocco cannot close the strait militarily, nor can Spain or Britain exercise exclusive control over it. International law protects transit passage through straits used for international navigation.
Control, however, does not always require the ability to physically close a waterway.
It can also be exercised through port access, infrastructure, migration pressure, diplomatic influence and the political weakening of neighboring states.
Ceuta and NATO's legal gap
Ceuta and Melilla occupy an unusual position in Spain's security architecture.
They are Spanish territory, but their location on the African continent has long raised questions about the automatic application of NATO's collective defense clause.
Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty defines the geographic scope of an armed attack covered by Article 5, and territories on the African mainland are not clearly included.
That ambiguity does not mean Spain would be abandoned in a crisis. NATO allies could still act politically or militarily. But it does create uncertainty, particularly in scenarios that fall below the threshold of conventional armed attack.
A movement of unarmed civilians, tolerated rather than directly organized by Moroccan authorities, would be especially difficult to classify as an Article 5 event.
This is precisely why hybrid tactics are effective. They exploit the space between law enforcement, migration, territorial pressure and military coercion.
Morocco's expanding partnerships
Morocco's position is reinforced by deepening security cooperation with both the United States and Israel.
The relationship with Israel now extends well beyond diplomatic normalization. It includes intelligence cooperation, air defense, artillery, drones, satellite systems and joint military planning.
For Israel, Morocco offers a strategic partner on the Atlantic side of North Africa and at the entrance to the Mediterranean. A stronger Moroccan military position also weakens Spain, one of the European governments most openly supportive of Palestinian statehood and most critical of Israeli policy.
Washington's relationship with Rabat has also deepened.
Morocco is regarded in the United States as a key African security partner, while voices inside Congress and the American policy community have increasingly questioned Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla.
These positions do not amount to a formal US policy recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over the enclaves. They do, however, change Rabat's strategic calculations by suggesting that Spain may not receive automatic political backing from Washington.
Madrid's disputes with the United States over defense spending and access to military facilities have further weakened Spain's position.
Morocco can therefore exert pressure while assuming that Washington will be reluctant to confront it sharply.
Algeria and the cost of Spanish balancing
Algeria is the counterweight to Morocco, but its position is equally complex.
It remains a major supporter of the Polisario Front and continues to treat Western Sahara as both a decolonization issue and an instrument of strategic competition with Rabat.
Algeria is also one of Spain's principal gas suppliers.
This places Madrid in a difficult position. Spain wants continued cooperation with Morocco on migration and security, but it also wants Algerian energy and a stable relationship with Algiers.
Sánchez has attempted to maintain both relationships without clearly choosing between them.
From Madrid's perspective, this is pragmatic balance. From Rabat's perspective, it is evidence that Spain expects Moroccan cooperation while simultaneously strengthening Morocco's principal regional rival.
The Ceuta crisis can therefore be read as a warning that such balancing carries a cost.
Britain and the Gibraltar paradox
Britain occupies the northern military stronghold of the strait through Gibraltar, while Spain maintains its sovereignty claim over the territory.
This creates an unavoidable rhetorical contradiction.
Spain invokes decolonization when discussing Gibraltar, but rejects the same language when Morocco applies it to Ceuta and Melilla.
The two cases are legally different. Gibraltar is listed by the United Nations as a non-self-governing territory, while Ceuta and Melilla are not.
Politically, however, Morocco can still exploit the comparison.
The new arrangements governing movement around Gibraltar also introduce new points of friction between Britain and Spain. Greater Spanish access near sensitive areas may ease everyday movement, but it also gives Madrid additional leverage should relations deteriorate.
Britain therefore has a strong interest in stability around the strait. Unlike Morocco, it gains little from managed disorder.
Who benefits from instability?
Morocco benefits from instability only as long as it remains controlled.
Migration pressure can force Spain to negotiate, but prolonged disruption would also damage TangerMed and Morocco's own trade interests.
Algeria benefits when Spain is reminded that cooperation with Rabat has limits, but Algiers also requires stable gas exports and cannot afford a wider regional crisis.
Russia benefits politically from any instability that divides NATO attention and creates pressure inside the European Union.
Israel benefits from a weaker Spanish government and from the strengthening of a close security partner on the southern shore of the strait.
The European Union and Britain, by contrast, have an overwhelming interest in stability.
Europe needs the strait for trade, energy and the integrity of its southern border. Britain needs Gibraltar to remain operational without becoming the focal point of a wider sovereignty confrontation.
The paradox is that Gibraltar's growing strategic importance increases Morocco's leverage but also lowers the tolerance of Europe and the United States for uncontrolled instability.
Rabat can apply pressure, but only up to the point at which its partners begin to see Morocco itself as a threat to the security of the waterway.
A wider chokepoint strategy?
The Ceuta crisis also raises a broader question: are the world's maritime chokepoints increasingly being treated as parts of a single strategic system?
Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, Suez, Gibraltar, the Panama Canal, the Strait of Malacca and Arctic sea routes are all central to the movement of energy, military forces and global trade.
American strategic thinking has increasingly focused on access to these passages and on preventing China or Russia from acquiring privileged positions around them.
Greenland and the GIUK Gap shape access to the northern Atlantic. Gibraltar shapes access to the southern Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
Seen from this perspective, deeper US ties with Morocco strengthen a partner positioned on the southern shore of one of the world's most important waterways.
There is no public evidence that Washington or Israel has adopted the explicit goal of "controlling Gibraltar" through Morocco. Such a claim remains an inference.
What is documented is a growing network of military, diplomatic and technological cooperation that improves Morocco's position while Spain becomes increasingly isolated in Washington.
Formal ownership is not always required to shape a chokepoint. Influence over the states, ports and military facilities surrounding it may be enough.
More than a migration crisis
The Ceuta events were a migration emergency, but they were not only a migration emergency.
They exposed the fragility of Spanish authority in North Africa, the effectiveness of Moroccan pressure, the consequences of Madrid's attempt to balance Rabat and Algiers, and the expanding role of the United States and Israel in Morocco's strategic rise.
They also came at a moment when the western entrance to the Mediterranean is becoming more valuable because the eastern routes are increasingly unstable.
At the mouth of the Mediterranean stand three powers with different interests: Britain controls Gibraltar, Morocco dominates the most important port on the southern shore, and Spain controls the northern coast and the enclaves while facing pressure from both regional rivals and external partners.
Ceuta is therefore more than a border city.
It is a test of whether Spain can preserve sovereignty, manage migration and maintain its regional alliances at a time when the balance of power around the Strait of Gibraltar is changing.
The border fence is where that struggle becomes visible, but the real contest extends far beyond it.