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Britain said on Tuesday it would recognise a Palestinian state unless Israel takes steps to relieve suffering in Gaza, where starvation is spreading, and reaches a ceasefire in the nearly two-year war with Hamas.
The warning came after a hunger monitor said a worst-case scenario of famine is unfolding and immediate action is needed to avoid widespread death.
Palestinian authorities said more than 60,000 Palestinians were now confirmed killed by Israel’s air and ground assault on the Gaza Strip.
The alert by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) raised the prospect that the man-made starvation crisis in Gaza could be formally classified as a famine, in the hope that this might raise the pressure on Israel to let in far more food.
Britain’s warning heightens pressure on Israel amid an international outcry over its conduct of the war.
France announced it would recognise Palestinian statehood last week in a move that enraged the Israeli government.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer told his cabinet on Tuesday that Britain would follow suit at the United Nations General Assembly in September “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,” his government said.
The move, if carried through, would be mostly symbolic, with Israel occupying the territories where the Palestinians have long aimed to establish that state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.
It makes Israel appear more isolated on the international stage as a growing number of countries call for it to allow unfettered aid into Gaza, where it controls all entry and exit points to the besieged coastal territory.
However, US President Donald Trump’s administration – Israel’s closest and most influential ally – has made clear it has no intention of joining others in recognising Palestinian statehood anytime soon.
Since returning to office in January, Trump has left it unclear whether he would support an eventual Palestinian state.
Trump said on Tuesday he and Starmer did not discuss Britain’s proposal to recognise a Palestinian state when the two held talks in Scotland over the weekend.
Has famine been declared in Gaza?
With the international furore over Gaza’s ordeal growing, Israel announced steps over the weekend to ease aid access.
But the UN World Food Programme said on Tuesday it was not getting the permissions it needed to deliver enough aid since Israel began humanitarian pauses in warfare on Sunday.
“Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,” the IPC said, adding that “famine thresholds” have been reached for food consumption in most of Gaza.
It said it would quickly carry out the formal analysis that could allow it to classify Gaza as “in famine”.
Gaza’s health authorities have been reporting more and more people dying from hunger-related causes.
The total stands at 147, among them 88 children, most of whom died in the last few weeks.
COGAT, an Israeli defence ministry body in charge of civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said more than 200 truckloads of aid were distributed on Monday.
Another 260 trucks were permitted to cross into Gaza to deposit aid at collection points, four UN tankers brought in fuel and 20 pallets of aid were airdropped from Jordanian and Emirati planes, COGAT said.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said that Israeli air strikes killed at least 30 Palestinians, including women and children, in the central Nuseirat district.
The Israeli military said it had “struck several terror targets in the central Gaza Strip”, but that the number of reported casualties “does not align with the information held by the (military)”.
Israel has bombarded Gaza since Hamas’ October 7 attack in which more than 1,200 people, including an estimated 30 children, were killed and over 200 hostages taken, according to the Israeli government. More than 60,034 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
The October 7 attack was a significant escalation in the long-standing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
