Britain will recognise the state of Palestine in September unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the “appalling situation” in Gaza and meets other conditions, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told his cabinet on Tuesday according to a government statement.
“He said that the UK will recognise the state of Palestine in September, before UNGA (United Nations General Assembly), unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, reaches a ceasefire, makes clear there will be no annexation in the West Bank, and commits to a long-term peace process that delivers a Two State Solution,” the statement said.
“He 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.”
Starmer took the decision after recalling his cabinet during the summer holidays on Tuesday to discuss a new proposed peace plan being worked on with other European leaders and how to deliver more humanitarian aid to Gaza.
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Successive British governments have said they will formally recognise a Palestinian state when the time is right, without ever setting a timetable or specifying the necessary conditions.
With warnings people in Gaza are facing starvation, a growing numbers of lawmakers in Starmer’s Labour Party have asking him to recognise a Palestinian state to put pressure on Israel.
‘Worst-case scenario of famine’
The “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip,” the leading international authority on food crises said in a new alert Tuesday, predicting “widespread death” without immediate action.
The alert, still short of a formal famine declaration, follows an outcry over images of emaciated children in Gaza and reports of dozens of hunger-related deaths after nearly 22 months of war. International pressure led Israel over the weekend to announce measures, including daily humanitarian pauses in fighting in parts of Gaza and airdrops. The U.N. and Palestinians on the ground say little has changed, and desperate crowds continue to overwhelm delivery trucks before they reach their destinations.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said Gaza has teetered on the brink of famine for two years, but recent developments have “dramatically worsened” the situation, including “increasingly stringent blockades” by Israel.
A formal famine declaration, which is rare, requires the kind of data that the lack of access to Gaza, and mobility within, has largely denied. The IPC has only declared famine a few times — in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and parts of Sudan’s western Darfur region last year.
But independent experts say they don’t need a formal declaration to know what they’re seeing in Gaza.
“Just as a family physician can often diagnose a patient she’s familiar with based on visible symptoms without having to send samples to the lab and wait for results, so too we can interpret Gaza’s symptoms. This is famine,” Alex de Waal, author of “Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine” and executive director of the World Peace Foundation, told The Associated Press.
—Reporting by William James, writing by Muvija M; editing by Andrew MacAskill