“The twisted decision of their governments is a reward for Hamas; Hamas congratulates them on this. The decision will have more serious consequences for our relations with their countries.” With these words, the Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Yaakov Blitshtein, reprimanded this Thursday the ambassadors of the three European countries – Spain, Ireland and Norway – that they had announced the day before the recognition of the state of Palestine next week, as quoted in a ministry statement. The call is one of the measures put forward by the head of the portfolio, Israel Katz. together with the call for consultation of the diplomatic representatives of the three states. The minister was not present because he was visiting France.

Diplomacy showed the ambassadors (Spanish Ana María Sálomon, Norway's Per Egil Selvaag and Ireland's Sonya McGuinness) a reduced version of the video of the kidnapping of the soldiers guarding the Nahal Oz base during the October 7 attack. In the recording, made by the Hamas militiamen themselves with the cameras they had attached, they are seen receiving threats with their hands tied; some of them, bloody. The forum representing the families of the hostages allowed its distribution precisely to put pressure on the government to reach an agreement on their release, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to show it to the diplomatic representatives.

After the tour, the director general showed them Hamas' statement celebrating the announcement as proof, “for those who still had doubts,” of “to what extent the recognition of a Palestinian state is a reward for terrorism”.

That same Wednesday, an Israeli deputy, Sharren Haskel, sent a letter to the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, asking him to respond to Spain's decision by presenting the Council of Ministers and the Parliament's plenary with the following : recognition of the independence” of Catalonia, the Basque Country, Galicia, Andalusia, Aragon and the Canary and Balearic Islands. All these autonomous communities, he assures, have shown a 'clear will for independence'. In a message on the social network

Haskel is in the opposition. She is a member of parliament for New Hope, the split from Netanyahu's party (Likud) that she leads. former Minister of Justice Gideon Saar and that participated in the last elections together with the formation of Benny Gantz (National Unity). Both formations remained in opposition after the 2022 elections, but they joined together in the war cabinet formed after the October 7 attack. In March they ended their alliance and Saar's party left the executive.

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