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Prime Minister Mark Carney has said Canada will recognise a Palestinian state in September, making it the third G7 country to do so in recent days.
Carney said such a move would depend on reforms including commitments by the Palestinian Authority to fundamentally reform its governance and to hold general elections in 2026 without Hamas and to demilitarise the territory.
His announcement comes a day after the UK announced it would recognise a Palestinian state in September unless Israel agreed to a ceasefire and other conditions.
Last week, France said it will also formally recognise a Palestinian state. Most countries - about 139 in all - formally recognise a Palestinian state.
At Wednesday's news conference, Carney said "the level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable and it is rapidly deteriorating".
He added that Canada had long been committed to a two-state solution as part of a negotiated peace process, but said that "this approach is no longer tenable".
Carney has been under pressure in recent days to address Palestinian statehood.
Nearly 200 former Canadian ambassadors and diplomats signed a letter on Tuesday calling on him to recognise a Palestinian state.
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The Independent
23 minutes ago
- The Independent
Gaza aid truck drivers face increasing danger from desperate crowds and armed gangs
Truck drivers trying to deliver aid inside Gaza say their work has become increasingly dangerous in recent months as people have grown desperately hungry and violent gangs have filled a power vacuum left by the territory's Hamas rulers. Crowds of hungry people routinely rip aid off the backs of moving trucks, the local drivers said. Some trucks are hijacked by armed men working for gangs who sell the aid in Gaza's markets for exorbitant prices. Israeli troops often shoot into the chaos, they said. Drivers have been killed in the mayhem. Since March, when Israel ended a ceasefire in its war with Hamas and halted all imports, the situation has grown increasingly dire in the territory of some 2 million Palestinians. International experts are now warning of a 'worst-case scenario of famine' in Gaza. Under heavy international pressure, Israel last week announced measures to let more aid into Gaza. Though aid groups say it's still not enough, getting even that amount from the border crossings to the people who need it is difficult and extremely dangerous, the drivers said. Driving aid trucks can be deadly Thousands of people packed around the road Monday as two trucks entered southern Gaza, AP video showed. Young men overwhelmed the trucks, standing on the cabs' roofs, dangling from the sides and clambering over each other onto the truck beds to grab boxes even as the trucks slowly kept driving. 'Some of my drivers are scared to go transfer aid because they're concerned about how they'll untangle themselves from large crowds of people,' said Abu Khaled Selim, vice president of the Special Transport Association, a nonprofit group that works with private transportation companies across the Gaza Strip and advocates for truck drivers' rights. Selim said his nephew, Ashraf Selim, a father of eight, was killed July 29 by a stray bullet when Israeli forces opened fire on crowds climbing onto the aid truck he was driving. Shifa Hospital officials said they received his body with an apparent gunshot to the head. The Israeli military said it was unaware of the incident and that 'as a rule" it does not carry out deliberate attacks on aid trucks. Earlier in the war, aid deliveries were safer because, with more food getting into Gaza, the population was less desperate. Hamas-run police had been seen securing convoys and went after suspected looters and merchants who resold aid at exorbitant prices, Now, 'with the situation unsecured, everything is permissible,' said Selim, who appealed for protection so the aid trucks could reach warehouses. The U.N. does not accept protection from Israeli forces, saying it would violate its rules of neutrality, and said that given the urgent need for aid it would accept that hungry people were going to grab food off the back of the trucks as long as they weren't violent. Flooding Gaza with renewed aid would ease the desperation and make things safer for the drivers, said Juliette Touma, communications director at UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. The danger for drivers is growing Ali al-Derbashi, 22, was an aid truck driver for more than a year and a half, but he quit after his last trip three weeks ago because of the increasing danger, he said. Some people taking aid off the trucks are now carrying cleavers, knives and axes, he said. He was once ambushed and forcibly redirected to an area designated by Israel as a conflict zone in its war against Hamas. There everything was stolen, including his truck's fuel and batteries, and his tires were shot out, he said. He was beaten and his phone was stolen. 'We put our lives in danger for this. We leave our families for two or three days every time. And we don't even have water or food ourselves,' he said. In addition to the danger, the drivers faced humiliation from Israeli forces, he said, who put them through 'prolonged searches, unclear instructions, and hours of waiting.' The war began Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 others. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to the latest figures by Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the Hamas government. The threats come from everywhere Nahed Sheheibr, head of the Special Transport Association, said the danger for the drivers comes from everywhere. He accused Israel of detaining drivers and using them as human shields. The Israeli military did not comment on the accusation. In recent days, men linked to a violent Gaza clan fired at drivers, injuring one, and looted a convoy of 14 trucks, he said. They later looted a convoy of 10 trucks. Hossni al-Sharafi, who runs a trucking company and was an aid driver himself, said he is only allowed to use drivers who have no political affiliation and have been approved by Israel to transport aid from crossings. Al-Sharafi said he was detained by Israeli forces for more than 10 days last year while transporting aid from the southern Kerem Shalom crossing and interrogated about where the truck was headed and how the aid was being distributed. Israeli officials did not comment on the accusations. Some drivers spoke of being shot at repeatedly by armed gangs. Others said their trucks were routinely picked clean — even of the wooden pallets— by waves of desperate people, many of whom were fighting each other for the food, while Israeli troops were shooting. Hungry families who miss out on the aid throw stones at the trucks in anger. Anas Rabea said the moment he pulled out of the Zikkim crossing last week his aid truck was overwhelmed by a crowd. 'Our instructions are to stop, because we don't want to run anyone over,' he said. 'It's crazy. You have people climbing all over the cargo, over the windows. It's like you're blind, you can't see out.' After the crowd had stripped everything, he drove another few hundred meters and was stopped by an armed gang that threatened to shoot him. They searched the truck and took a bag of flour he had saved for himself, he said. 'Every time we go out, we get robbed," he said. "It's getting worse day by day.' ——- Associated Press writers Julia Frankel contributed to this report from Jerusalem and Sally Abou Aljoud from Beirut. Mariam Dagga contributed from Khan Younis, Gaza Strip.
Telegraph
35 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Importing more anti-Semites is the last thing France needs
Emmanuel Macron's surprise announcement on July 24 that he would formally recognise the 'State of Palestine' at the United Nations 80th General Assembly in September should come as no surprise. Once a supporter of Israel as the model of la start-up nation, the French president now believes in ensuring his legacy among the bien-pensant Left – or, more practically, that he now stands a chance of being elected as the next UN secretary-general after he finishes his last presidential term. Closer to home, with his personal polling in the doldrums, Macron has watched with keen interest the younger troops of the French Left, his original home, turning the issue of Gaza into a hot national button. In hierarchical France, following up le Chef 's decisions with some gesture demonstrating your allegiance is de rigueur. France's foreign secretary, Jean-Noël Barrot, soon announced that following a month-old ruling by the National Court of Asylum all Gaza residents qualify for entry in France as full refugees. And 292 of their top students would be admitted in French academic institutions, with benefits and housing allocations extending up to three years depending on their degree program. A list of suitable names was compiled within hours by the French Consulate in Jerusalem, which, unlike the one in Tel Aviv, only concerns itself with Palestinian territories matters. The fiasco that followed was perfectly predictable. Nour Atallah, a student from Gaza in France, allegedly shared a video in October 2023 of Hitler with the caption: 'kill the Jews everywhere. I don't want a Jewish lineage on this earth, you must kill them before they kill you.' Miss Atallah's acceptance into the prestigious Sciences-Po Lille for a master in media and business, complete with housing in the university's own president's accommodation, has now been rescinded. The case of Fady Hossam Hanona is similar. His experience as a journalist in Gaza and as a stringer for, among others, the New York Times and the Guardian meant that when he arrived in France in July a job already awaited him in the Arabic Service at France 24. But Hanona reportedly said on social media in August 2022: 'The Jews are sons of dogs, and I am with killing them and burning them, like Hitler did to them – I would be extremely happy.' (He has deleted the post). All 292 Palestinians asylum guests are belatedly being screened, and the programme has been suspended. But some of their bloodthirsty language – which has been for decades the vernacular in Palestinian school manuals, mosque preaches and the Internet – has long been present in France. It is evident first among the country's resentful clusters of unintegrated and jobless youths; and now among the hard Left. It is no wonder that ten days after the October attacks, an employee of the foreign ministry called Sophie Pommier was caught on camera and seemed to be ragefully tearing down posters of Israeli hostages. Since the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000, French Jews have been subject to a number of horrific attacks and murders. In 2012, a man named Mohamed Merah went on anti-Semitic rampage and killed seven people in southern France; salesman Ilan Halimi was tortured and murdered in 2006; Sarah Halimi was beaten and defenestrated in 2017. Macron's warm words of sympathy to the Jewish community, meanwhile, are invariably followed by strange decisions, such as declining to take part in a march against anti-Semitism in Paris in November 2023. Thinking himself attuned to the Zeitgeist, the once-youngest president of the Fifth Republic, now a middle-aged 47, hankers after the political youth cred he believes he once enjoyed. He finds it at home among the keffiyeh-wearing crowd that Jean-Luc Mélenchon's France Insoumise seems to effortlessly mobilise. And he finds it abroad at the UN, where his last decision is definitely popular.
The Independent
39 minutes ago
- The Independent
Starmer has ‘made a mistake' with plan to recognise Palestinian state
Sir Keir Starmer has 'made a mistake' in announcing plans to recognise Palestine as a state, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said. The Government last week said it will recognise a Palestinian state in September unless Israel agrees to meet certain conditions, including a ceasefire and a revival of the two-state solution. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister reiterated that Hamas must release the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, disarm and play no role in the government of Gaza. The Government will then make an assessment in September 'on how far the parties have met these steps', the Prime Minister said. During a visit to a farm in Little Walden, Essex, on Tuesday, Mrs Badenoch said she would never agree to recognising a Palestinian state while Hamas is still in power in Gaza. She said: 'Absolutely not. No. Hamas is a terrorist organisation. We should not be creating a new terrorist state. 'This is basic stuff, and I don't understand why Keir Starmer doesn't understand that.' The Tory leader added: 'Keir Starmer has made a mistake. What we need to focus on now is a ceasefire and getting the hostages home. 'We've been seeing images of a hostage who looks like he's being starved to death, forced to dig his own grave. This is what Hamas is about. 'Now is not the time to reward them for their atrocities and for the massacre they committed on October 7 by giving them statehood recognition. 'We want to see a two-state solution after a peace settlement done in the right way at the right time. It is not the right thing to do now. 'And I'm not surprised that British hostages like Emily Damari have condemned the Government for the approach they've taken.' Ms Damari, a British-Israeli woman who was held hostage by Hamas for more than a year, has said she believes Sir Keir is 'not standing on the right side of history' after his conditional pledge to recognise Palestine. Mrs Badenoch's comments came as it was announced a protest will take place in London this weekend opposing Sir Keir's plans to recognise Palestine as a state. Demonstrators, including some British family members of hostages still held by Hamas, will march on Downing Street calling for the release of the remaining hostages before any talk about the recognition of Palestine. Marchers will include the relatives of Avinatan Or, who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival with his girlfriend Noa Argamani. Mr Or's cousin Ariel Felber, from London, said: 'Keir Starmer has failed the hostages and their families by not making it a condition that all the remaining hostages are brought home to their loved ones before he can even entertain talk of state recognition of Palestine. 'He urgently needs to correct this.' Steve Brisley from Bridgend, Wales, whose sister and nieces were murdered on October 7 and his brother-in-law Eli taken hostage, said: 'As British families of hostages and victims, devastated by the ongoing suffering of our loved ones, our emotional torture has been exacerbated by the suggestion that the UK may recognise a Palestinian state without securing the release of the hostages as an absolute precondition. 'This is not about politics. This is about basic humanity.' The family members are expected to be joined by Jewish leaders and other supporters on their National March For The Hostages through central London on Sunday afternoon. Tzipi Hotovely, Israeli ambassador to the UK, said on X that Hamas's actions 'must never be rewarded' as she highlighted the plight of one of the hostages, 24-year-old Evyatar David. Hamas released a video on Saturday which showed Mr David looking skeletal and hollow-eyed in a dimly lit Gaza tunnel. Ms Hotovely said: 'He is clearly malnourished and ill-treated. A shadow of his former self, his suffering is unimaginable. 'Like countless others who saw it, I was appalled by the sickening footage of Evyatar being forced to dig his own grave. 'This abhorrent footage shows Hamas for what they are – wicked terrorists who seek to inflict as much death, destruction and suffering on as many Jews and Israelis as they can. Their actions must never be rewarded.'
