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BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgium will move toward recognizing a Palestinian state, the country’s foreign minister said Tuesday, joining a growing list of countries preparing to take the step as Israel steps up its offensive in Gaza.
Maxime Prévot said Belgium’s plans to recognize a Palestinian state will be announced at the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 9.
However, the acknowledgment is predicated on two conditions — the return of all Israeli hostages held in Gaza and the removal of Hamas from political power in the coastal exclave. The conditions make it unlikely the recognition will be formalized anytime soon.
The announcement marks the latest sign of international support for a Palestinian state, and would add Belgium to a list of more than 140 countries to recognize Palestinian statehood, including more than a dozen in Europe.
Prévot on Tuesday also announced plans to ban goods coming from Israeli settlements in the West Bank and designate Hamas leaders, violent settlers, and two far-right Israeli ministers as persona non grata.
“This is not about sanctioning the Israeli people but about ensuring that their government respects international and humanitarian law and taking action to try to change the situation on the ground,” Prévot said on social platform X.
Prévot said the European Union should increase more pressure on Israel by suspending ties with the country, including its trade pact known as the Association Agreement.
Israel’s war in Gaza has stressed ties within the bloc’s 27 nations, ignited protests across the continent, and frayed political coalitions including in Belgium and its neighbor the Netherlands. But despite growing political tension, Israel’s deep ties with European military, business and academic institutions remain largely intact.
Belgium’s announcement sparked fury from Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who, along with finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, is a likely target of the new sanctions.
“The self-righteous European countries that are being manipulated by Hamas — at the end they’ll discover terrorism on their own flesh,” Ben Gvir said in a statement to The Associated Press.
France and the United Kingdom have both announced plans to recognize Palestine, putting added diplomatic pressure on Israel.
Australia, Canada and the European countries moving toward statehood recognition have predicated the step on the Palestinian Authority making reforms. The current Palestinian leadership is seen as corrupt and autocratic by many Palestinians. While the leaders cooperate with Israel on security matters, Israel does not view them as effective or fully committed to peace, and says the Palestinian Authority should have no role in postwar Gaza.
The Palestinians seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank, annexed east Jerusalem and Gaza, territories Israel occupied in the 1967 Mideast war.
Israel’s government and most of its political class have long opposed Palestinian statehood and now say it would reward militants after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
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Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
