TORONTO, ON — Canada recognized a Palestinian state on Sunday despite opposition from the U.S, with the hope it paves the way for peace based on two states living side by side.

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on the social platform X that Canada had recognized a Palestinian state. Britain and Australia also announced that they were doing the same on Sunday.

Carney had already said in late July he would do so as many Western countries are increasingly dismayed by the intensifying war in Gaza.

The moves comes ahead of the U.N. General Assembly this week, where other nations, including Australia and France, are also expected to recognize a Palestinian state.

The formal recognition of Palestinian statehood by Western countries has angered Israel and the United States, which say recognition emboldens extremists and rewards Hamas, the group that led the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks into southern Israel that triggered the war.

U.S. President Donald Trump had previously threatened Canada, saying Canada’s announcement “will make it very hard” for the United States to reach a trade agreement with its northern neighbor.

Pressure to formally recognize Palestinian statehood has increased since French President Emmanuel Macron announced this summer that his country will become the first major Western power to do so in September.

Macron is to formally declare France’s recognition of a Palestinian state on Monday at a United Nations conference in New York co-chaired with Saudi Arabia, at the start of the U.N. General Assembly.

More than 145 countries already recognize a Palestinian state, including more than a dozen in Europe.

Carney has previously said Canada is working with other states “to preserve the possibility of a two-state solution, to not allow the facts on the ground, deaths on the ground, the settlements on the ground, the expropriations on the ground, to get to such an extent that this is not possible.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government rejects a two-state solution.

Canada has long supported the idea of an independent Palestinian state existing alongside Israel, but has said recognition should come as part of a negotiated two-state solution to the conflict.

Israeli bombardment over the past 23 months has killed more than 65,100 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, destroyed vast areas of the strip, displaced around 90% of the population and caused a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, with experts saying Gaza City is experiencing famine.

Forty-eight hostages remain in Gaza, with fewer than half believed to still be alive. Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirmed Sunday that the U.K. is formally recognizing a Palestinian state.

Starmer said the move is intended “to revive the hope of peace for the Palestinians and Israelis.”

Though the move is largely symbolic, it is a historic moment as the U.K. arguably laid the groundwork for the creation of the Israeli state when it was in control of what was then known as Palestine in 1917.

The U.K. is not alone in recognizing a Palestinian state. More than 140 countries have already taken that step and more are expected to do so at the U.N. General Assembly this week, including France.

The U.K.’s recognition of a Palestinian state comes just days after a state visit from U.S. President Donald Trump, during which he voiced his disapproval of the plan.

“I have a disagreement with the prime minister on that score,” Trump said.

Critics, including the U.S. and the Israeli government, which has shown no interest in a two-state solution, have condemned the plans, saying it rewards Hamas and terrorism. As well as arguing that recognition is immoral, critics argue that it’s an empty gesture given that the Palestinian people are divided into two territories — the West Bank and Gaza — with no recognized international capital.

Starmer has insisted that Hamas will have no role in the future of the governance of the Palestinian people and must release the Israeli hostages it still holds from the attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.

France and the U.K. have a historic role in the politics of the Middle East over the past 100 years, having carved up the region following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.

As part of that carve-up, the U.K. became the governing power of what was then Palestine. It was also author of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which backed the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people.”

However, the second part of the declaration has been largely neglected over the decades. It noted “that nothing shall be done, nothing which may prejudice the civil and religious rights” of the Palestinian people.

Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, who will represent the U.K. at the U.N. this week, said in July that this had not been upheld and represented “a historical injustice which continues to unfold.”

The Palestinian head of mission in the U.K. Husam Zomlot told the BBC that recognition would right a colonial-era wrong.

“The issue today is ending the denial of our existence that started 108 years ago, in 1917,” he said. “And I think today, the British people should celebrate a day when history is being corrected, when wrongs are being righted, when recognition of the wrongs of the past are beginning to be corrected.”

The U.K. has for decades supported an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, but insisted recognition must come as part of a peace plan to achieve a two-state solution.

However, the government has become increasingly worried that such a solution is becoming all but impossible – not only because of the razing of Gaza and displacement of most of its population during nearly two years of conflict, but because Israel’s government is aggressively expanding settlements in the West Bank, land Palestinians want for their future state. Much of the world regards Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, which is ostensibly run by the Palestinian Authority, as illegal.

“We are working to reform the Palestinian Authority, and we have to keep two states alive for the children of both Gaza and the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” said Lammy.

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