Belgium to Recognize Palestinian State at UN General Assembly

The Belgian government said on Sept. 2 it would recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly later this month, following similar moves by France, Britain, Canada, and Australia.

“Palestine will be recognized by Belgium at the UN session! And firm sanctions are being imposed on the Israeli government,” Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot wrote on X.

“Any anti-Semitism or glorification of terrorism by Hamas supporters will also be more strongly denounced,” he added.

Belgium’s announcement came a few hours after Israel launched air strikes across the Gaza Strip on Sept. 1.

Israel is conducting a fresh offensive against Hamas in Gaza, following the collapse of talks to arrange a cease-fire. Israel says it only targets Hamas, which it accuses of deliberately basing itself in civilian areas.

On Aug. 31 Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israeli strikes had killed Abu Obeida, who had been the longtime spokesman for Hamas in Gaza.

Israel has killed most of Hamas’s military and political leaders since the terrorist group—which refuses to recognize the Jewish state—launched an attack into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 Israelis and abducting 251 people.

Around 50 hostages are still held in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed by Israel to be alive.

Last month, a report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, an independent group of relief and intergovernmental organizations that monitors global hunger conditions, said food shortages in the Gaza Strip have reached the level of famine.

‘Humanitarian Tragedy’

“In view of the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Palestine, particularly in Gaza, and in the face of the violence perpetrated by Israel in violation of international law, and given its international obligations, including the duty to prevent any risk of genocide, Belgium had to take strong decisions to increase pressure on the Israeli government and the Hamas terrorists,” Prevot wrote on X.

Brussels said it will sign the New York Declaration, along with France, Britain, Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and several other countries, which Prevot said, “charts the course towards a two-state solution.”

On Aug. 29, the U.S. State Department said it would not grant visas to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and other Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leaders who wanted to attend the U.N. General Assembly session.

“It is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace,” the department said in a statement.

The PA considers the territory of the West Bank—which Israel conquered in 1967 during the Six-Day War—and Gaza to be its territory, and considers East Jerusalem its capital.

But the United States, which recognized Jerusalem as the Israeli capital in December 2017, says a Palestinian state cannot be set up without the agreement of Israel.

Netanyahu: Recognition ‘Reward’ for Terror

After France announced it would recognize a Palestinian state, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the move would “reward terror” and risk the creation of what he described as “another Iranian proxy.”

During an interview with Sky News Australia last month, Netanyahu said Hamas had a “de facto state in Gaza—and they use it for murder, pillage and monstrous crimes, is to reward terrorism.”

Last month, while visiting a proposed new Israeli settlement near Jerusalem, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, “This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognize and no one to recognize.”

The Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza says 63,557 Palestinians have been killed since Oct. 7, 2023.

On Aug. 31, the International Association of Genocide Scholars— which has around 500 members—passed a resolution saying that “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the resolution was “an embarrassment to the legal profession and to any academic standard” and was “entirely based on Hamas’s campaign of lies.”

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.