The Spanish consulate in the occupied holy city of al-Quds (File photo)

Tel Aviv, May 27 (RHC)--  The Israeli regime has taken “punitive measures” against Spain over Madrid's decision to recognize the Palestinian state.  On Monday, the Israeli foreign ministry said the Spanish consulate in the holy occupied city of al-Quds would be banned from offering services to Palestinians as of June 1st.

Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz alleged in a separate statement that the decision by Madrid amounted to “harming Israel’s security.”  Katz said the decision served as “an award to Hamas,” the Palestinian resistance movement that defends the Gaza Strip against Tel Aviv’s aggression, including an October-present genocidal war that the regime has been waging against the coastal sliver.

Spain announced the decision to recognize the Palestinian state alongside Ireland and Norway last week, saying the recognition would enter official state on Tuesday, May 28.

Also on Monday, the trio’s foreign ministers held a joint press conference in Brussels, with the Spanish top diplomat José Manuel Albares saying the decision served as the “best” way to achieve “final peace in the Middle East.”

The formal recognition of a Palestinian state would be a “historic day,” the officials added, expressing hopes that other European countries follow suit.  They also said they hoped that the recognition would accelerate efforts towards securing a ceasefire in the Israeli regime’s war on Gaza.

The war, launched following a retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance groups, has so far claimed the lives of around 36,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

Most recently, the military onslaught saw Israeli warplanes firing eight missiles toward makeshift shelters housing internally-displaced persons in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, killing at least 50 Palestinians.