French President Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday that France will recognize Palestine as a state, in the middle of the world anger of snowball in front of hungry people in Gaza.
Macron said in a job On X that it will formalize the decision at the United Nations General Assembly in September. “The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and that the civilian population is saved,” he posted.
The French president offered support to Israel after October 7, 2023, the terrorist attack of Hamas against Israel and frequently expressed against anti -Semitism, but he has become more and more frustrated by the War of Israel in Gaza, in particular in recent months.
“Given its historical commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I decided that France will recognize the state of Palestine,” said Macron. “Peace is possible.”
He also published a letter he sent to the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas about the decision.
In a statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel “strongly” condemned this decision and that she “rewards terror and risks creating another Iranian indicator, just like Gaza has become”.
“A Palestinian state under these conditions would be a launch ramp to destroy Israel-not to live in peace next to it. Let’s be clear: the Palestinians do not seek a state alongside Israel; they are looking for a state instead of Israel,” he said.
The Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry had no immediate comments.
France is the largest and most powerful European country to recognize Palestine. More than 140 countries recognize a Palestinian state, however, the United States is not among them.
France has the largest Jewish population in Europe and the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, and fights in the Middle East often pour out in demonstrations or other tensions in France.
The French Minister of Foreign Affairs co-hosted a conference at the UN next week about a two-state solution. Last month, Macron expressed his “determination to recognize the state of Palestine”, and he put pressure for a wider movement towards a solution to two states, in parallel with the recognition of Israel and his right to defend himself.
Thursday’s announcement came shortly after the United States cut off the cease-fire talks from Gaza to the United States in Qatar, saying that Hamas did not show good faith.
Momentum has been built against Israel in recent days. Earlier this week, France and more than two dozen countries, mainly European countries, condemned the restrictions of Israel to aid shipping on the territory and the murders of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach food.
The Palestinians seek an independent state in occupied West Bank, annexed Jerusalem-Est and Gaza, territories that Israel occupied in the war in the Middle East of 1967. The Israeli government and most of its political class have long been opposed to the Palestinian State and now say that it would reward the terrorists after the attack on Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem little time after the 1967 War and considers it as part of its capital. In the West Bank, he built dozens of colonies which now house more than 500,000 Jewish settlers with Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the territory live under the Israeli military regime, the Palestinian authority exercising limited autonomy in population centers.
