UK to recognise state of Palestine in September 'unless Israel ends suffering'
The UK will recognise the state of Palestine in September, Keir Starmer has announced – but only if Israel fails to satisfy a number of conditions.
His decision came after a meeting with the cabinet this afternoon, and ahead of a speech by Foreign Secretary David Lammy at the UN in New York.
Starmer said official recognition from the UK would come before the United Nations General Assembly in two months time if 'substantive steps' were not taken by the Israeli government.
They include moving to end the 'appalling situation in Gaza', agreeing to a ceasefire, and committing to a 'long-term sustainable peace' which would lead to a two-state solution.
It would also involve allowing UN workers into Gaza to distribute aid and 'making clear that there will be no annexations in the West Bank'.
The Prime MInister said: 'Meanwhile, our message to the terrorists of Hamas is unchanged but unequivocal: they must immediately release all of the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, disarm and accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza.
'And we'll make an assessment in September on how far the parties have met these steps, but no one should have a veto over our decision. More Trending
'So this is the way forward.'
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
The move comes after Starmer came under intense pressure to recognise Palestinian statehood from top Labour figures including Sadiq Khan and some top figures in his cabinet.
They reportedly included Deputy PM Angela Rayner, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
More than a third of MPs in the House of Commons have also signed a letter to the Prime Minister calling for recognition.
In 1949, a year after it declared independence, the UN admitted Israel as a member.
It was not until 1988 that Palestinian statehood was recognised by any UN member states, after the Palestinian National Council formally declared independence.
Today, 147 of the UN's 193 member states recognise Palestine, including the vast majority of the countries in Asia, Africa and South America.
The UK, US, Canada, Germany, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are among the nations that do not.
For several British governments, both Labour and Conservative, the position has remained the same: recognition would wait until it was deemed most appropriate for the peace process.
Israel has argued that making the move at the moment would mean rewarding Hamas for the deadly terror attack on October 7 2023.
But countries in support of recognition say it is a clear step towards the two-state solution that would consider Israel and Palestine as sovereign countries on equal terms.
Got a story? Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. Or you can submit your videos and pictures here.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
Follow Metro.co.uk on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news updates. You can now also get Metro.co.uk articles sent straight to your device. Sign up for our daily push alerts here.
MORE: My family are starving – so I made a desperate offer via Facebook
MORE: Tech secretary suggests Nigel Farage is on side of Jimmy Savile over online law
MORE: You can buy a Maga hat for £55 and a £30 teddy at Trump's Turnberry golf course
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Corbyn strikes again as Labour lose their first councillor to the former leader's ultra-left party founded with Zarah Sultana
Labour have lost their first councillor to the ultra-left party former leader Jeremy Corbyn recently founded with dissident MP Zarah Sultana. Grace Lewis, 22, defected from Sir Keir Starmer 's party on Friday to join the new political grouping - which at present is only a 600,000-person-strong mailing list. Ms Lewis, a vocal pro-Palestinian voice on Coventry City Council, represents the ward of Westwood in the southwest of the city. In a post on social media she laid into Labour's record in government, citing Sir Keir's raid on winter fuel payments, cuts to disability allowance and the party's retention of the two child benefit cap. In the statement she said: 'Today, after 5 and a half years, I resigned my Labour Party membership. I will now serve the residents of Westwood on Coventry City Council as an Independent. 'The Labour Party promised 'change', yet since entering government, Labour has cut support for disabled people, kept the Tories cruel Two Child Benefit cap and slashed Winter Fuel Payments - driving record numbers into poverty. 'Rather than address the real crises facing people in our city, they have chosen the side of the rich and powerful. 'They have joined Reform in targeting minorities, including migrants and trans peple, all whilst being atcive participants in the genocide in Gaza, ramping up spending on war, and arming Israel - criminalising peaceful protestors in the process.' Coventry councillor Grace Lewis, 22, (pictured) is the first serving Labour politician to defect to Your Party, the new political grouping formed by former leader Jeremy Corbyn and ex-MP Zarah Sultana Ms Lewis was elected in the City Council Elections on May 2, 2024, two months before Sir Keir Starmer's 'loveless landslide' at that year's General Election. She won her seat with 1936 voters on 47 per cent of the ballot, with the Conservative candidate Asha Masih finishing second on 1415 voters on 35 per cent of votes. Ms Lewis began her two-year term on May 7 and also sits on the City Council's Planning Committee, Health and Social Care Scrutiny Board and Communities and Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Board. In her short time as an elected councillor she has courted controversy on several occasions - most noteable in her vocal support for the Palestinian cause. Last December she lambasted Israel in a council meeting for carrying out a 'genocidal assault on Gaza', The Telegraph reported. In the same meeting she called for the West Midlands Pension Fund to divest from any investments with companies involved in arms sales to Israel. Ms Lewis also carried over her advocacy into her personal life, wearing a badge of the Palestinian flag to her graduation day last year at the University of Warwick. In another graduation picture she can be seen holding a hand-painted banner with two other students that reads 'Free Palestine'. In the Instagram caption accompanying the photo she wrote: 'My degree may be over, but Warwick's complicity is not #freepalestine.' Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana's movement has the website with a welcome message saying 'this is your party'. Already 600,000 people have signed up to the party's mailing list, although the name is only a placeholder, with Mr Corybn suggesting the members will be handed the final say. Government ministers who used to sit alongside Mr Corbyn in the House of Commons mocked the 'chaotic' launch of the veteran MP's new party. Yet Mr Corbyn shrugged off the criticism and said there had been an 'enormous' response to the launch. Speaking during a visit to a bin strike picket line in Birmingham on Jult 25, he pointed out that hundreds of thousands had already flocked to the new outfit. The party is expected to hold its inagural conference in November and Mr Corbyn has outlined a focus on peace, social justice and an end to austerity economics. In her statement outlining her reasons for quitting Labour, Ms Lewis attacked Labour's spending plans which she said locally included cuts to libaries and charities. But Ms Sultana immediately sowed confusion by insisting a name had not yet been chosen. She frantically posted on social media: 'It's not called Your Party.' She wrote: 'They have continued austerity and failed to properly address the deepening crisis of Local Government finance, with many authorities still at risk of bankruptcy. 'Here in Coventry, the Labou Council cuts library services, cultural funding and support for local charities. 'And when workers stand up to fight for decent living standards Coventry City Council responds by strike-breaking, sending Tom White Waste trucks to Birmingham, insulting the very trade unions which the party was founded to defend. 'This is not the change peple voted for, not the changed I joined the Labour Party for when I was 16, and certainly not the change which people deserve. 'Therefore, I welcome the launch of a new left party, one rootred in working-class communities and committed to real change.' Cllr Lewis added: 'When Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn announced its inception, I felt a sense of genuine political hope for the first time in a long time.' In a post on X commenting on the defection, Zarah Sultana said: 'Grace is a formidable force in local government and I'm proud to welcome her to the new political party we're building! 'Across the country, millions feel politically homeless. Labour is dead. To councillors everywhere: are you really delivering the change Keir Starmer promised?' Polls have suggested the new party headed by Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana could take between 10 and 18 per cent of the vote at the next General Election, which would prove disastrous for Labour nationally. The so-called 'Hastings Independents Group' - which consists of MPs who left Labour in December 2023 - have already affiliated with Your Party. Councillors Paul Barnett, Andy Batsford, John Cannan, Nigel Sinden, Mike Turner, and Simon Willis are all onboard with the new grouping, which seems set to shake up the left of British politics. In an email to supporters, Your Party confirmed their first conference will be held before the end of 2025. They wrote: 'This conference will be the moment where, together, we will decide the direction, structure and platform of this party. 'To make it as accessible and democratic as possible, the conference will be hybrid – both in-person and online – so that everyone can take part in the decisions that will shape its future. Make no mistake: whatever the name, it is always going to be your party.' However, those inside the Labour cabinet have been scathing about Your Party. Technology Secretary Peter Kyle told Times Radio: 'I was an MP in the Labour Party when Jeremy Corbyn was leader. 'And the chaos and instability that he brought to our party I'm now viewing him wreak in his new party. 'I'm just very glad that I'm looking on it from the outside this time, rather than having to experience it from the inside.' Mr Kyle, who campaigned for Mr Corbyn to become prime minister at the 2017 and 2019 general elections, said the veteran left-winger was 'not a serious politician'. He added: 'The thing that worries me the most about what he says is that he doesn't want to spend money defending our country. 'He is against the money that Labour is investing into the defence of our country. 'At the moment, these are the things that should fundamentally worry us about the words of Jeremy Corbyn. 'He's not a serious politician. He doesn't think about governing, he thinks about posturing.'
South Wales Guardian
2 hours ago
- South Wales Guardian
US special envoy Witkoff visits food distribution centre in Gaza
International experts warned this week that a 'worst-case scenario of famine' is playing out in Gaza. Israel's near 22-month military offensive against Hamas has shattered security in the territory of some 2.0 million Palestinians and made it nearly impossible to safely deliver food to starving people. Envoy Steve Witkoff and the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, toured a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution site in Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, which has been almost completely destroyed and is now a largely depopulated Israeli military zone. Hundreds of people have been killed by Israeli fire while heading to such aid sites since May, according to witnesses, health officials and the UN human rights office. Israel and GHF say they have only fired warning shots and that the toll has been exaggerated. In a report issued on Friday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said GHF was at the heart of a 'flawed, militarised aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths.' Mr Witkoff posted on X that he had spent more than five hours inside Gaza in order to gain 'a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza'. He did not request any meetings with UN officials in Gaza during his visit, UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters. UN agencies have provided aid throughout Gaza since the start of the war, when conditions allow. Chapin Fay, a spokesperson for GHF, said the visit reflected Mr Trump's understanding of the stakes and that 'feeding civilians, not Hamas, must be the priority'. The group said it has delivered over 100 million meals since it began operations in May. All four of the group's sites established in May are in zones controlled by the Israeli military and have become flashpoints of desperation, with starving people scrambling for scarce aid. More 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli fire since May while seeking aid in the territory, most near the GHF sites but also near United Nations aid convoys, the UN human rights office said last month. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots at people who approach its forces, and GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding. Officials at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza said on Friday they received the bodies of 13 people who were killed while trying to get aid, including near the site that US officials visited. GHF denied anyone was killed at their sites on Friday and said most recent shootings had occurred near UN aid convoys. Mr Witkoff's visit comes a week after US officials walked away from ceasefire talks in Qatar, blaming Hamas and pledging to seek other ways to rescue Israeli hostages and make Gaza safe. Mr Trump wrote on social media that the fastest way to end the crisis would be for Hamas to surrender and release hostages. The war was triggered when Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on October 7 2023 and abducted 251 others. They still hold 50 hostages, including about 20 believed to be alive. Most of the others have been released in ceasefires or other deals. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry. Its count does not distinguish between militants and civilians. The ministry operates under the Hamas government. The UN and other international organisations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.
Times
3 hours ago
- Times
Families criticise Starmer and say hostages ‘will rot in Hamas dungeons'
Hostages held captive in Gaza will continue to 'rot in Hamas dungeons' under Sir Keir Starmer's plan to bring peace to the Middle East. Lawyers representing the relatives of British people who were held by Hamas and those who had been murdered said the prime minister's peace plan would harm the remaining hostages in Gaza. Adam Wagner KC and Adam Rose, acting for the seven British families of hostages in Gaza, said four of the families met with senior Foreign Office officials on Thursday evening. In a statement, they said that British recognition of a Palestinian state if Israel and Hamas failed to reach a ceasefire by September would 'disincentivise Hamas from agreeing a deal'. They asked: 'Why would Hamas agree to a ceasefire if it knew that to do so would make British recognition of Palestine less likely?'. They said the families had 'held out some hope that the policy could not be as they feared and that since the UK had chosen to impose conditions on recognition, those conditions would also be on Hamas, as otherwise they would essentially be rewarded for continuing to commit war crimes, including hostage taking and encouraged to continue that path'. But that 'it was clear from the meeting last night that the British government's policy will not help the hostages, and could even hurt them'. Wagner and Rose claimed the release or otherwise of hostages would 'play no part' in the decision ministers will make in September and added: 'In other words, the 'vision for peace', which the UK is pursuing and which the families heard much about last night, may well involve our clients' family members continuing to rot in Hamas dungeons, just as British and British-linked hostages Emily Damari and Eli Sharabi did before them.' Starmer said the UK would only refrain from recognising Palestine if Israel allowed more aid into Gaza, stops annexing land in the West Bank, agrees to a ceasefire and signs up to a long-term peace process over the next two months. While he also called for Hamas to immediately release all remaining Israeli hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, disarm and 'accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza', he did not explicitly say these conditions would factor into a decision on whether recognition would go ahead. The US accused Starmer, Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, and President Macron of France of being 'clumsy' by saying they would recognise a Palestinian state before all hostages were released. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said recognition of Palestine as a state was 'irrelevant' and told Fox News Radio: 'The UK is like, well, 'if Israel doesn't agree to a ceasefire by September, we're going to recognize a Palestinian state. So if I'm Hamas, I say, 'you know what, let's not allow there to be a ceasefire.' If Hamas refuses to agree to a ceasefire, it guarantees a Palestinian state will be recognized by all these countries in September.' The British families want the government to 'confirm that without the hostages being released, there can be no peace, and that this will be an important part of its decision as to whether to proceed with recognition and its current plan'. Starmer said this week that 'I've been absolutely clear and steadfast that we must have the remaining hostages released, that's been our position throughout'. However, Damari, a British-Israeli woman who was held captive by Hamas, accused him of 'not standing on the right side of history' and said she was 'deeply saddened' by his decision. The families of Damari and Sharabi were among those who met with the Foreign Office. Also present were relatives of Nadav Popplewell, who died while held captive, as well as those of Oded Lifshitz, who also died, and Yocheved Lifschitz, who was released. The government said: 'We have announced our intention to recognise Palestine in September to protect the viability of the two-state solution. The first step in that process must be a ceasefire and there is no question about that. 'Our demands on Hamas have not changed. For there to be any chance of peace, the hostages must be released. Hamas must lay down its weapons and commit to having no future role in the governance of Gaza. 'We must also see significant progress on the ground including the supply of humanitarian support and for Israel to rule out annexations in the West Bank, and a commitment to a long-term sustainable peace. We will make an assessment ahead of UNGA (the United Nations general assembly) on how far both Israel and Hamas have met the steps we set out. No one side will have a veto on recognition through their actions or inactions.' President Trump had also expressed his 'displeasure and disagreement' with Starmer over the promise to recognise a Palestinian state. The US president, who had previously suggested he was relaxed about the prospect, even though he disagreed, hardened his stance after more countries said they would recognise Palestine. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Trump had expressed his 'displeasure and his disagreement with the leaders of France, the United Kingdom and Canada'. She told reporters: 'He feels as though that's rewarding Hamas at a time where Hamas is the true impediment to a ceasefire and to the release of all of the hostages.' Dame Diana Johnson, the crime and policing minister, said there would be an assessment in September on whether the British government will recognise a Palestinian state. Asked if hostages being released would be a condition of that, she told Times Radio: 'Neither side has a veto on what the British government choose to do in September. And that will be an assessment that will be taking place in September. 'The prime minister has set out what he expects from Israel. Obviously, that's a democratically elected government, very different to Hamas, which is a terrorist organisation.' She said: 'We need to actually have the ceasefire, and then move on to trying to re-establish that peace process and the establishment of what my party and I think generally is accepted, a two-state solution.'
