By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -Dozens of ministers will gather at the United Nations on Monday for a delayed conference to work toward a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, but the U.S. and Israel are boycotting the event.
The 193-member U.N. General Assembly decided in September last year that such a conference would be held in 2025. Hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, the conference was postponed in June after Israel attacked Iran.
The conference aims to lay out the parameters for a roadmap to a Palestinian state, while ensuring Israel’s security.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told newspaper La Tribune Dimanche in an interview published on Sunday that he will also use the conference this week to push other countries to join France in recognizing a Palestinian state.
France intends to recognize a Palestinian state in September at the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly, President Emmanuel Macron said last week.
“We will launch an appeal in New York so that other countries join us to initiate an even more ambitious and demanding dynamic that will culminate on September 21,” Barrot said, adding that he expected Arab countries by then to condemn Palestinian militants Hamas and call for their disarmament.
The conference comes as a 22-month war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza still rages. The war was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel’s military campaign has killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
The U.S. will not attend the conference at the United Nations, said a State Department spokesperson, describing it as “a gift to Hamas, which continues to reject ceasefire proposals accepted by Israel that would lead to the release of hostages and bring calm in Gaza.”
The State Department spokesperson added that Washington voted against the General Assembly last year calling for the conference and would “not support actions that jeopardize the prospect for a long-term, peaceful resolution to the conflict.”
Israel is also not taking part in the conference, “which doesn’t first urgently address the issue of condemning Hamas and returning all of the remaining hostages,” said Jonathan Harounoff, international spokesperson at Israel’s U.N. mission.
The U.N. has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders. Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, all territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war with neighboring Arab states.
The U.N. General Assembly in May last year overwhelmingly backed a Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the U.N. Security Council “reconsider the matter favorably.” The resolution garnered 143 votes in favor and nine against.
The General Assembly vote was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member – a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state – after the U.S. vetoed it in the U.N. Security Council several weeks earlier.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols, additional reporting by John Irish in ParisEditing by Marguerita Choy)
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