UK tells Israel: no retaliation over Palestinian statehood recognition

Britain-Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has urged Israel not to retaliate by annexing parts of the West Bank following the UK’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state.

Speaking to the BBC ahead of a UN conference in New York, Cooper said she had made it clear to her Israeli counterpart that any such move would be unacceptable. “This decision is about security for both Israelis and Palestinians,” she said. “It’s about peace, justice, and stability in the Middle East.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced on Sunday that the UK — alongside Canada, Australia and Portugal — would recognise Palestinian statehood, a major shift in British foreign policy. The move has drawn fierce criticism from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called it “a huge reward to terrorism”, and from US officials, who warned it risked emboldening Hamas.

The UK insists Hamas will have no role in a future Palestinian state, noting it is a proscribed terrorist organisation. Sir Keir said recognition was “a pledge to both Palestinians and Israelis that there can be a better future”, describing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as “utterly intolerable”.

France, Belgium and other European nations are expected to follow suit at the UN this week. Cooper will push to build international consensus on reviving a two-state solution, which she said extremists on both sides are seeking to undermine.

Hamas welcomed the recognition as “an important step” but called for immediate measures to end the war.