Hamas Joins Iran in Praising Spain for Hostile Approach to US, Israel

The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has praised Spain for permanently withdrawing its ambassador to Israel on Tuesday, joining Iran in heralding the NATO ally’s hostile posture toward the Jewish state and the US amid ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

“We welcome the decision of the Spanish government to withdraw its ambassador from the ‘Zionist entity’ and to reduce its diplomatic representation. This decision continues the honorable positions taken by the Spanish government against the genocide carried out against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” the Islamist group behind the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel said in a statement.

“While we greatly appreciate this courageous Spanish position, we reiterate our demand that all countries of the world sever all forms of relations with the ‘Zionist entity,'” the statement continued.

Hamas’s comments came after Spain published an announcement in its official gazette that the ambassador’s position had been terminated. Spain’s Foreign Ministry said its embassy in Tel Aviv will be led by a charge d’affaires for the foreseeable future.

Israel’s embassy in Spain is also run by a charge d’affaires after the country summoned its ambassador last May in protest of Spain’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state, a decision that Jerusalem characterized as a “reward for terrorism.”

Spain’s ambassador to Israel was initially summoned back to Spain in September amid a diplomatic dispute. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of antisemitism, following Madrid’s latest measures against the Jewish state.

Sánchez unveiled new policies at the time targeting Israel over the war in Gaza, including an arms embargo and a ban on certain Israeli goods.

The Spanish government announced it would bar entry to individuals involved in what it called a “genocide against Palestinians,” block Israel-bound ships and aircraft carrying weapons from Spanish ports and airspace, and enforce an embargo on products from Israeli communities in the West Bank.

Meanwhile, Saar announced sanctions against two Spanish ministers, accusing the government in Madrid of antisemitism and of pursuing an escalating anti-Israel campaign aimed at undermining the Jewish state on the international stage.

For years, Hamas has received funding, weapons, and training from Iran, which last week expressed support for Spain’s decision to block US forces from using its bases for military operations against the Islamic regime. The move left Madrid as the only major EU country to have explicitly criticized the US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

In response to an online news report saying that the Spanish government “denies that the US is using its bases in Spain for the war against Iran,” the Iranian embassy in Spain reshared the headline and added, “Iran fully recognizes and respects this position, which is in accordance with international law.”

While Spain has strongly condemned the US-Israeli attack on Iranian regime targets, other European countries have denounced Iran’s counterstrikes on civilian sites across the Middle East.

US President Donald Trump has lambasted Spain for its stance, even threatening to cut off trade.

“I think they’re not cooperating at all. Spain. I think they’ve been very bad, very bad, not good at all. We may cut off trade with Spain,” Trump told reporters, adding that Madrid has been “very bad to NATO” and does not want to “pay their fair share.”

Spain quickly condemned the strikes against Iran after they began, calling them “dangerous” and “outside of international law.”

Israel accused Spain of “standing with tyrants” for opposing the war.

Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities started the Gaza war, Spain has been one of Israe’’s fiercest critics on the international stage.

Earlier this month, police raided a steel factory near Bilbao, northern Spain, questioning staff over suspected violations of the country’s arms embargo on Israel

The Action and Communication on the Middle East (ACOM) group, a pro-Israel organization in Spain, described the move as part of a “pattern of political pressure on economic actors for ideological reasons.”

“The combination of state intervention with a political climate that tolerates — and sometimes encourages — aggressive activism against Israel and its partners creates a scenario in which civil liberties and the legal security of companies and citizens are steadily eroded,” ACOM said in a statement.

In September, the Spanish government passed a law to take “urgent measures to stop the genocide in Gaza,” banning trade in defense material and dual-use products from Israel, as well as imports and advertising of products originating from Israeli settlements.

That same month, when Spain recalled its ambassador to Israel, Sánchez accused the Jewish state of “exterminating defenseless people” in Gaza and “breaking all the rules of humanitarian law.”

Sánchez’s administration expanded the boycotted products to ban imports from Israeli communities in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.

While pursuing such policies and attacking Israel verbally, Sánchez has facing backlash from his country’s political leaders and Jewish community, who accuse him of fueling antisemitic hostility.

Amid a sharp rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes and anti-Israel sentiment, Lorenzo Rodríguez, mayor of Castrillo Mota de Judíos in northern Spain, accused the country’s leader in September of “fueling a discourse of hatred” against Israel and the Jewish people.

“The government is fostering antisemitism that will prove deeply damaging for Spain,” Rodríguez said in an interview with the local outlet El Español.

Comparing Spain’s attitude toward Israel with other countries, Sa’ar stated earlier this month that “the obsessive activism of the current Spanish government against Israel stands out in light of its ties with dark, tyrannical regimes — from Iran’s ayatollahs to [Nicolás] Maduro’s government in Venezuela.”