Saudi Arabia announces coalition to push for Palestinian state
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, has announced the formation of an “international alliance” aimed at advancing the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The announcement was made on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, as reported by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) on Friday.
The alliance includes Arab and Islamic nations, as well as European partners, although specific details about the participating countries have not been disclosed.
This coalition comes in the wake of the ongoing Gaza war, which has reignited discussions about a “two-state solution,” envisioning peaceful coexistence between Israeli and Palestinian states.
However, analysts note that achieving this goal seems more elusive than ever, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government maintaining a firm stance against Palestinian statehood.
Saudi Arabia, a global oil powerhouse and guardian of Islam’s holiest sites, had paused US-brokered negotiations on normalizing relations with Israel after the Gaza conflict broke out between Hamas militants and Israel.
Earlier in September, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made it clear that Saudi Arabia’s recognition of Israel would be contingent upon the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
A senior official from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) disclosed to AFP that the coalition is mainly composed of Islamic and Arab countries, alongside some European nations.
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The coalition plans to hold meetings across Arab and European countries to discuss the practical implementation of the two-state solution, with a major conference scheduled in Riyadh later this year.
Earlier this year, countries like Ireland, Norway, Spain, and Slovenia joined 146 out of 193 UN member states in officially recognising a Palestinian state, prompting discontent from Israel.
In his remarks during a ministerial meeting on the Palestinian crisis, Prince Faisal criticized Israel’s justification of its military actions in Gaza as “self-defense,” stating that such a rationale could not excuse the loss of tens of thousands of civilian lives and the systematic destruction and displacement that followed the conflict.
The ongoing war, triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, has resulted in over 41,000 deaths in Gaza, according to health officials in the Hamas-run territory.
