Portugal’s Foreign Affairs Minister Paulo Rangel announced on Sunday that the country had recognised the state of Palestine.
Portugal was recognising Palestine alongside Britain, Canada and Australia, a move Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has kicked against.
“The recognition of the state of Palestine is the realisation of a fundamental, constant, and fundamental line of Portuguese foreign policy,” Rangel told reporters at the headquarters of Portugal’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York.
Reuters reported that the minister said that “Portugal advocates the two-state solution as the only path to a just and lasting peace…a ceasefire is urgent.”
He added that Hamas “cannot have any form of control in Gaza or outside it” and demanded the release of all hostages.
Rangel also said that recognising the state of Palestine “does not erase the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” and he also condemned the situation of starvation there, the destruction, and the “expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.”
The development comes as Israel came under huge international pressure over the war in Gaza, triggered almost two years ago by the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
