UK announced plan to recognise Palestine
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer
The UK says it will recognise Palestine as a state by September if Israel fails to halt its assault in Gaza.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told an emergency cabinet meeting on Tuesday that the move could come before the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
He said Israel should agree to a ceasefire, halt plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, and supports a political path towards a two-state solution.
“[Starmer] reiterated that there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas and that our demands on Hamas remain, that they must release all the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, accept that they will play no role in the government of Gaza, and disarm,” a government statement said.
While past UK governments have supported Palestinian statehood “when the time is right”, none has publicly tied it to a specific deadline or laid out preconditions so explicitly.
Israel has however lashed out at the UK following the announcement, claiming that the move would damage any chance of a ceasefire. Israel broke the last negotiated ceasefire in March.
Starmer informed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the plan in a phone call before making it public.
The development comes amid the UN alarm of looming famine in Gaza. More than one in three people in Gaza are now going days at a time without food, an alert issued by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, a United Nations (UN)-backed assessment, said.
There is mounting evidence that widespread starvation, malnutrition and diseases are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths among the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza.
“This is the worst-case scenario of famine unfolding in Gaza. Only immediate action to end hostilities and unimpeded, large-scale humanitarian access can stop further deaths and catastrophic human suffering,” the IPC said.
Earlier, Hamas said the death toll from the ongoing war between Israel and Gaza has reached 60,034, with more than 145,870 Palestinians injured.
