United Nations: As the Gaza war rages on, France and Saudi Arabia are chairing a high-profile meeting at the United Nations on Monday aimed at galvanising support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with more nations expected to recognise a Palestinian state in defiance of Israel and the United States.
The meeting and expanded recognition of Palestinian statehood are expected to have little if any actual impact on the ground, where Israel is waging another major offensive in the Gaza Strip and expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The meeting is set to begin at 3 pm ET (1900 GMT), with several world leaders expected to speak. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to address the meeting by video after he and dozens of other senior Palestinian officials were denied US visas to attend the conference. The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Portugal recognised the state of Palestine on Sunday, and the Palestinians expect a total of 10 countries, including France, to do so in the coming days. Around three-fourths of the 193-member United Nations recognises Palestine, but major Western nations had until recently declined to, saying one could only come about through negotiations with Israel.
Palestinians have welcomed the moves toward recognition, hoping they might someday lead to independence. “This is a beginning, or a glimmer of hope, for the Palestinian people,” Fawzi Nour al-Deen said Sunday as he held a bag on his head, joining thousands of people fleeing south from Gaza City. “We are a people who deserve to have a state.”
International community widely backs a Palestinian state
The creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — territories seized by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — is widely seen internationally as the only way to resolve the conflict, which began more than a century before Hamas’ October 7 attack ignited the war in Gaza nearly two years ago. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government opposed Palestinian statehood even before the war and now says such a move would reward Hamas, the militant group that still controls parts of Gaza. He has hinted Israel might take unilateral steps in response, including annexing parts of the West Bank, which would put a viable Palestinian state even further out of reach.
A UN official brushed off such threats, saying efforts to bring about a two-state solution should continue regardless of Israel’s actions.
“I think we have to be determined in achieving the goal that we want to achieve, and we cannot be distracted by threats and intimidation,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric. Netanyahu is under pressure from his far-right coalition to move ahead with annexation, but the United Arab Emirates — the driving force behind the 2020 Abraham Accords, in which the UAE and three other Arab states forged ties with Israel — has called it a “red line,” without saying how it could affect the two countries’ now close ties.
Netanyahu said he would decide on Israel’s response to the Palestinian statehood push after meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House next week.