KEY POINTS
- Britain, Canada, Australia, and Portugal have recognised the State of Palestine.
- France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Malta are expected to follow at the UN General Assembly.
- Around 150 of 193 UN member states now recognise Palestine.
- Around 45 countries, including the US, Israel, Japan, South Korea, and Germany, do not recognise Palestine.
- Experts say recognition is symbolic but shifts diplomatic balance, placing Palestine on equal legal footing with Israel.
NEW YORK: Britain, Australia, Canada, and Portugal on Sunday recognised the State of Palestine after nearly two years of the ongoing Israeli military offensive in Gaza, with France, Belgium, Malta and other countries expected to follow suit at the UN General Assembly.
The move marks a significant shift in international diplomacy on Palestinian statehood.
Here is an overview of diplomatic recognition of the state, which was proclaimed by the Palestinian leadership in 1988.
The Palestine Liberation Organization declared an independent Palestinian state in 1988, and most of the global South quickly recognised it. Today, about 150 of the 193 UN member states have done so, according to Reuters’s count.
Of the Palestinian territory claimed by the state, Israel currently occupies the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is largely in ruins.
Which Countries Recognise State of Palestine?
The count includes Britain and Canada – the first G7 countries to do so -, Australia and Portugal.
Several other countries, including France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Malta, are expected to follow suit during a summit on the future of the two-state solution chaired by France and Saudi Arabia on Monday at United Nations headquarters in New York.
Russia, alongside all Arab countries, almost all African and Latin American countries, and most Asian countries, including India and China, are already on the list.
Algeria became the first country to officially recognise a Palestinian state on November 15, 1988, minutes after late Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat unilaterally proclaimed an independent Palestinian state.
Dozens of other countries followed suit in the following weeks and months, and another wave of recognitions came in late 2010 and early 2011.
The Israeli offensive in Gaza has now driven another 13 countries to recognise the state.
Who Does Not Recognise Palestinian State?
At least 45 countries, including Israel, the United States and their allies have so far refrained from recognizing the Palestinian state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government completely rejects the idea of a Palestinian state.
In Asia, Japan, South Korea and Singapore are among the countries that do not recognise Palestine.
Neither does Cameroon in Africa, Panama in Latin America and most countries in Oceania.
Europe is the most divided continent on the issue, and is split almost 50-50 over Palestinian statehood.
Until the mid-2010s, the only countries recognising the State of Palestine apart from Turkiye were those of the former Soviet bloc.
Now, some former Eastern Bloc countries such as Hungary and the Czech Republic do not recognise a Palestinian state at a bilateral level.
Western and northern Europe were until now united in non-recognition, with the exception of Sweden, which extended recognition in 2014.
But the war in Gaza has upended things, with Norway, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia following in Sweden’s footsteps to recognise the state in 2024, before the United Kingdom and Portugal did so on Sunday.
Italy and Germany do not plan on recognising a Palestinian state.
What Does Recognition Mean?
Romain Le Boeuf, a professor in international law at the University of Aix-Marseille in southern France, described recognition of Palestinian statehood as “one of the most complicated questions” in international law, “a little like a halfway point between the political and juridical”.
He told AFP states were free to choose the timing and form of recognition, with great variations that are either explicit or implicit. According to Le Boeuf, there is no office to register recognitions.
“The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank puts all they consider to be acts of recognition on its own list, but from a purely subjective point of view. In the same way, other states will say that they have or have not recognised, but without really having to justify themselves,” he said.
However, there is one point on which international law is quite clear: “Recognition does not mean that a state has been created, no more than the lack of recognition prevents the state from existing.”
While recognition carries largely symbolic and political weight, three-quarters of countries say “that Palestine meets all the necessary conditions to be a state”, he said.
“I know for many people this seems only symbolic, but actually in terms of symbolism, it is sort of a game changer,” lawyer and Franco-British law professor Philippe Sands wrote in the New York Times in mid-August 2025.
“Because once you recognise Palestinian statehood… you essentially put Palestine and Israel on level footing in terms of their treatment under international law.”
