LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will hold an emergency cabinet on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Gaza and a proposed peace plan as he comes under mounting pressure from his own party to recognize a Palestinian state.
Starmer has taken the rare step of recalling his cabinet during the summer holidays to discuss how to deliver more humanitarian aid to Gaza.
In a meeting with US President Donald Trump in Scotland on Monday, Starmer discussed the need for a ceasefire in Gaza and what he called the “revolting” humanitarian crisis.
Britain is working on the plan with France and Germany after a call between the leaders of the three countries last week.
Starmer has not shared details of the plan, but over the weekend he compared the proposals to the “coalition of the willing,” the international effort to support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire in its war with Russia.
Starmer’s spokesman said he would discuss the plan with other international allies and countries in the Middle East.
War has raged in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas for the past 22 months. Israel has been facing growing international criticism, which its government rejects, over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
With warnings people in Gaza are facing starvation, growing numbers of lawmakers in Starmer’s Labour Party want him to recognize a Palestinian state to put pressure on Israel.
British foreign minister David Lammy will attend a United Nations conference in New York on Tuesday to urge support for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.
Successive British governments have said they will formally recognize a Palestinian state when the time is right, without ever setting a timetable or specifying the necessary conditions.
The issue has come to the fore after President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday France would recognize Palestine as a state.
Starmer has so far rejected plans to immediately recognize a Palestinian state, saying he was focused on “practical solutions.”
Last week, more than 200 British members of parliament from nine parties signed a letter Friday calling for an immediate recognition of a Palestinian state.
UK PM Starmer recalls cabinet to discuss Gaza peace plan
https://arab.news/4fkng
UK PM Starmer recalls cabinet to discuss Gaza peace plan
- Starmer has not shared details of the plan, but over the weekend he compared the proposals to the “coalition of the willing,” the international effort to support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire in its war with Russia
French court slashes jails term for trio over 2020 teacher beheading
- Brahim Chnina, the Moroccan father of a girl who falsely claimed that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave his classroom before showing the caricatures, had his 13-year sentence reduced to 10 years
PARIS, France: A French court on Monday reduced on appeal the jail sentences of three men convicted over the 2020 terrorist beheading of a teacher who showed a class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Samuel Paty, 47, was murdered in October 2020 by an 18-year-old radical Islamist of Chechen origin in an act that horrified France.
His attacker, Abdoullakh Anzorov, was killed in a shootout with police.
Two friends of Anzorov, French national Naim Boudaoud and Azim Epsirkhanov, a Russian of Chechen origin, had their sentences of 16 years in prison reduced to six and seven years respectively by a Paris court of appeal.
Both were accused of having driven Anzorov and helping him to procure weapons before the beheading.
Brahim Chnina, the Moroccan father of a girl who falsely claimed that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave his classroom before showing the caricatures, had his 13-year sentence reduced to 10 years.
His daughter, then aged 13, was not actually in the classroom at the time and during the first trial apologized to the teacher’s family.
The court however left the 15-year term for French-Moroccan Islamist activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui untouched.
The quartet were among the seven men and one woman found guilty in 2024 of contributing to the climate of hatred that led to the beheading of the history and geography teacher in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, west of Paris.
Paty, who has become a free-speech icon, used the cartoons as part of an ethics class to discuss freedom of expression laws in France.
