Displaced Palestinians wait in front of a charity kitchen in the western Gaza City area, July 23, 2025. Two government officials said Britain was actively weighing the recognition of a Palestinian state, in a shift driven by public pressure over starvation in Gaza. (Saher Alghorra/The New York Times)
- Britain joins France in pledging to recognize Palestine, increasing pressure on Israel amid growing global outrage over Gaza's humanitarian crisis.
- Starmer’s shift follows political pressure and public anger over images of starvation and escalating violence in the Gaza Strip.
- The move marks a major foreign policy shift for the U.K., deepening Israel’s diplomatic isolation within the G7 nations.
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LONDON — Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Tuesday that Britain would recognize the state of Palestine in September if Israel does not agree to a ceasefire with Hamas, pouring pressure on the Israeli government to halt a war that has put the Gaza Strip on the brink of famine.
Starmer’s announcement, which came after an emergency meeting of his Cabinet, is a sharp shift in his position and reflected the intense political pressure his government has faced as the British public recoils from images of starving children in Gaza.
Starmer said recognition would not be immediate but would come as part of a broader European effort to end the ruinous war between Israel and Hamas. Britain followed in the steps of France, which announced last week that it would recognize an independent Palestinian state in September.
Britain’s decision will deepen Israel’s diplomatic isolation after it abandoned a truce with Hamas in March and resumed its military offensive in Gaza. It also carries significant symbolic weight, given Britain’s diplomatic stature and history in the Middle East.
Britain is the second member of the Group of 7 nations — also including the United States, Canada, Germany, Japan and Italy — to take this step. It played a critical role in the creation of the state of Israel by declaring in 1917 that it supported the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in what was then Palestine.
Starmer had been ambivalent about recognizing a Palestinian state, several officials said, in part because he viewed it as a “performative” gesture that would not change the situation on the ground and could, in fact, complicate efforts to negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
But a chorus of warnings about rising starvation in Gaza, after Israeli restrictions on the delivery of food, changed his calculation. More than 250 lawmakers, including many from his own Labor Party, signed a letter to Starmer and the foreign secretary, David Lammy, urging Britain to recognize a Palestinian state at a U.N. conference this week that is devoted to the two-state solution.
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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
By Mark Landler/Saher Alghorra
c. 2025 The New York Times Company
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