The United Kingdom plans to recognize a Palestinian state if Hamas and Israel do not reach a cease-fire agreement by September, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Tuesday.
Starmer told cabinet ministers that the U.K. will make the announcement before the United Nations General Assembly “unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, reaches a cease-fire, 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.”
Hamas must also release all hostages and “sign up to a cease-fire, disarm, and accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza,” Starmer said as part of his conditions.
The revelation comes one week after France voted to recognize a Palestinian state. Starmer has viewed statehood recognition as largely “performative” gesture in the past, British officials reported, but Parliament has pressured the prime minister to make the declaration.
The Israeli government’s rejection of a two-state solution is “wrong morally and it’s wrong strategically,” David Lammy, the foreign secretary, said. The “credible” path to peace is the creation of a Palestinian state, one in which Hamas holds no control in government, Starmer’s agreement made clear.
Some in Parliament agree that the declaration may be a gesture that has no bearing on Israel or Hamas’s future actions, but say that for moral and electoral reasons, the U.K. should push for a two-state solution regardless.
President Donald Trump, who met with the prime minister in Scotland this week, said Monday that he “doesn’t mind” if Starmer takes a position on the issue of Palestinian statehood, adding that the U.S. is “looking [to] get people fed right now.”
“That’s the number one position, you have a lot of starving people,” Trump said. “The United States recently, just a couple of weeks ago, we gave $60 million. It’s a lot of money. No other nation gave money.”
Trump, along with a host of other Western leaders, have stressed the need for more humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Israeli military over the weekend allowed aid airdrops into additional parts of Gaza and announced that it would add further humanitarian corridors in an effort to “improve the humanitarian response . . . and refute the false claims of deliberate starvation in the Gaza Strip.”