Israel warns recognising Palestinian state could trigger 'unilateral' action

JERUSALEM: Israel's foreign minister branded a recent international push to recognise Palestinian statehood a "mistake" on Sunday (Sep 7) and warned it could trigger an unspecified unilateral response, after reports that Israel plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.

Several countries, including France and Britain, have pledged to recognise a Palestinian state during the UN General Assembly later this month.

Israel's relations with France have been particularly strained since President Emmanuel Macron announced his country's plans and co-hosted a conference in July with Saudi Arabia to call for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Britain said it would recognise a Palestinian state if Israel failed to agree to a truce in the Gaza war, triggered by Palestinian group Hamas' October 2023 attack.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said such recognition "will destabilise the region" and would make it "harder to get to the peace".

"It will push Israel also to have unilateral decisions," Saar said at a joint press conference with his visiting Danish counterpart, Lars Lokke Rasmussen.

"States like France and the UK that pushed the so-called recognition had made a tremendous mistake," he added.

Rasmussen said Denmark does not plan a similar move.

"We will never... recognise a Palestinian state which is ruled by Hamas or any other terrorist organisation," he said.

"And therefore it comes with a lot of preconditions - a disarmed Palestinian state recognising Israel, transparency, democracy ... That is our position."

Saar did not specify what Israel's reaction may entail, but his remarks come after the government approved new settlement projects in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

A major project just east of Jerusalem, known as E1, would bisect the West Bank, and according to Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich "bury the idea of a Palestinian state".

Smotrich, who lives in a settlement, said on Wednesday that Israel should annex parts of the West Bank to "take the idea of dividing our tiny land and establishing a terrorist state at its centre off the agenda once and for all".

The West Bank is home to around three million Palestinians, as well as about 500,000 Israelis who live in settlements that are illegal under international law.

Israel has annexed east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau it captured from Syria, both seized during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Most of the international community does not recognise Israeli sovereignty over these areas.

Throughout the Gaza war, the West Bank has been rocked by a surge in violence including settler attacks and Israeli military raids.