According to President Emmanuel Macron, France will grant Palestine its status as a state.
Macron stated in a post on X on Thursday that he would officially announce the outcome at the UN General Assembly in September.
He wrote, “It’s crucial that the conflict in Gaza ends and the civilian population is saved.”
I have decided that France will recognize the State of Palestine in accordance with its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, Macron wrote.
He continued, “I will solemnly announce this at the United Nations General Assembly in September of this year.”
After Norway, Ireland, and Spain all indicated they would begin the same process, France becomes the largest and arguably most powerful nation in Europe to do so.
Some powerful Western nations have resisted recognizing a Palestinian state, but at least 142 of the 193 UN members currently recognize it or plan to recognize it. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany are among them.
The announcement comes as European anger grows over Israel’s war against Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of 59 Palestinians and 587 Palestinians, as well as strict restrictions on aid deliveries that have caused a hunger crisis.
France and 21 other allies of Israel, along with the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and France, all condemned the restrictions on aid entering Gaza as well as the killings of hundreds of Palestinians trying to get food.
The most significant joint statement from Western nations has yet to be released, which calls for the end of the conflict.
Macron had previously stated that he would “recognize the state of Palestine,” and that the French foreign minister would co-host a UN conference on a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict.
Additionally, the UK government has stated that Prime Minister Keir Starmer plans to coordinate with allies France and Germany in a Friday, urgent phone call to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip.
A ceasefire in Gaza, according to Starmer, “will set us on the path to the recognition of a Palestinian state and a two-state solution that guarantees Palestinians and Israelis peace and security.”
“A commitment to international law”
Macron wrote a letter outlining his intentions to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a post on Thursday.
Hussein al-Sheikh, Abbas’s deputy, praised the French leader in response.
Sheikh said, “This position reflects France’s commitment to international law and its support for the Palestinian people’s rights to self-determination and the establishment of our independent state.”
Algeria quickly became the first nation to officially recognize the state after former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat unilaterally declared an independent Palestinian state during the first intifada in 1988.
In a list that has grown steadily since Israel launched its war in Gaza following Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, dozens of nations, primarily in the Middle East and Africa, followed within a week.
However, a future Palestinian state’s establishment still faces significant challenges.
East Jerusalem, long regarded as the capital of a future Palestinian state, is currently held by Israel as the Palestinian government’s occupied territory.
Rights groups have criticized the Israeli government’s plan to expand massive amounts of Israeli settlements across the occupied West Bank in what is regarded as an effective annexation. This is against international law.
A symbolic resolution calling for the annexation of the territory it had initially seized in the 1967 conflict with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria was approved earlier this week by Israel’s parliament.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz referred to Macron’s announcement as “a disgrace and a surrender to terrorism” in a statement released on Thursday.
Source: Aljazeera
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