Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the United Kingdom will move to recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September unless Israel agrees a Gaza cease-fire, allows significantly more aid into the enclave, halts further annexation of West Bank land and recommits to a two-state peace process. The announcement is intended, he said, to revive a diplomatic track that risks “disappearing before our eyes.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the plan as “rewarding Hamas’s monstrous terrorism” and warned that a Palestinian state on Israel’s border would endanger Britain. Former US president Donald Trump echoed the criticism, while Israeli Speaker Amir Ohana and other officials argued the move would embolden militants rather than foster stability. Opposition is also growing inside the UK. A cross-party group of 43 peers and senior lawyers wrote to Attorney-General Lord Hermer claiming recognition could breach international law because Palestine lacks clear borders and a unified government, conditions set out in the Montevideo Convention. Freed British-Israeli hostages, including Emily Damari and Noam Sagi, said the policy risks delaying the release of remaining captives. Government messaging has appeared inconsistent. Business minister Gareth Thomas said the UK is not bound by the Montevideo Convention, and Starmer later indicated recognition could proceed even if Hamas still holds hostages—an apparent softening of his original demand for their immediate release that opponents called a policy U-turn. If London presses ahead, it would join roughly 147 UN member states—and, potentially, France—in recognising Palestinian statehood, sharpening diplomatic pressure on Israel as the war in Gaza approaches its second year.