The leaders of six countries, including France, have moved to recognise Palestinian statehood at a high-level summit ahead of the annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meeting in New York.
Alongside France, which co-convened the meeting with Saudi Arabia in New York, Andorra, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta and Monaco said they were recognising a Palestinian state.
Leaders from Australia, Canada, Portugal and the United Kingdom, which formally made the move to recognise Palestine a day earlier, also spoke at the meeting.
“We have gathered here because the time has come,” Macron said at the summit convened to revive the long-delayed two-state solution to end the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“It falls on us, this responsibility, to do everything in our power to preserve the possibility of a two-state solution,” Macron said.
“Today, I declare that France recognises the state of Palestine,” he said.
The additional countries recognising Palestine now join some 147 of the 193 UN member states that had already formally recognised Palestinian statehood as of April this year.
With more than 80 per cent of the international community now recognising the state of Palestine, diplomatic pressure has ramped up on Israel as it continues its genocidal war on Gaza, where more than 65,300 Palestinians have been killed and the enclave has been turned into rubble.
Spain, Norway and Ireland recognised Palestinian statehood last year, with Madrid also imposing sanctions on Israel for its war on Gaza.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told the summit that a two-state solution was not possible “when the population of one of those two states is the victim of a genocide”.