retaliate

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper says she has warned Israel not to annex parts of the West Bank in retaliation for the UK’s recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Cooper was speaking to the BBC before attending a conference on Monday at the UN in New York where France and other European states are due to make a similar announcement.

In what was a significant change in policy, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced the UK’s recognition of a Palestinian state on Sunday, along with Canada, Australia and Portugal.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the moves, saying they give “a huge reward to terrorism”.

Asked by the BBC if she was concerned Israel would take this declaration as a pretext for annexing parts of the West Bank, Cooper said she had made it clear to her Israeli counterpart that he and his government must not do that.

She said: “We have been clear that this decision that we are taking is about the best way to respect the security for Israel as well as the security for Palestinians.

“It’s about protecting peace and justice and crucially security for the Middle East and we will continue to work with everyone across the region in order to be able to do that.”

Cooper said extremists on both sides were seeking to abandon any prospect of a two-state solution, which the UK had a moral obligation to revive.

“The easy thing to do would be to just walk away and to say well it is all just too hard,” Cooper said. “We just think that is wrong when we’ve seen such devastation, such suffering.

“Just as we recognise Israel, the state of Israel … so we must also recognise the rights for the Palestinians to a state of their own as well.”

She did not say when the UK’s Consulate General in East Jerusalem would become a full embassy, saying it would continue while a diplomatic process began with the Palestinian Authority.

The foreign secretary was speaking in New York, where the UN General Assembly is convening this week.

Cooper will push to build international consensus on a framework for peace in the Middle East, the Foreign Office has said.

France will co-chair a meeting alongside Saudi Arabia addressing the path to a two-state solution to the conflict, after it pledged to recognise Palestinian statehood in July. Belgium is also expected to follow France’s declaration at the meeting.

Making the announcement on Sunday, Sir Keir said he wanted to “revive the hope of peace and a two-state solution”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by saying that Palestinian statehood “will not happen”.

The US joined him in describing the move as a diplomatic gift to Hamas after it attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.

Sir Keir stressed this was not the case as the terms of the recognition mean Hamas can have “no future, no role in government, no role in security”.

This message was echoed in a statement from the Foreign Office, which said the foreign secretary would use the UN meeting to “ensure violent terrorists like Hamas have no role to play in the future of a Palestinian state”.

The prime minister added that the decision was instead a “pledge to the Palestinian and Israeli people that there can be a better future”, saying the “starvation and devastation [in Gaza] are utterly intolerable”.

Sir Keir, who has repeatedly said Hamas can have no role in the future governance of a Palestinian state, said during his announcement that the UK had already proscribed and sanctioned Hamas and that he had directed work to sanction further Hamas figures in the coming weeks.

Hamas on Sunday welcomed the recognition as an “important step in affirming the right of our Palestinian people to their land and holy sites” but said it must be accompanied by “practical measures” that would lead to an “immediate end” to the war.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, the Conservatives’ deputy chair Matt Vickers said that the prime minister was “rewarding Hamas”.

“Hamas has already said this is a victory for them and the evil things they did on October 7”, he said.

“This is not the way you play the game, this not what you do if you want to get a two state solution. Everyone is devastated by what they see in Gaza, everyone is devastated by what they saw on 7 October. We need to work with the US to make sure those hostages come home.”

Last week, a UN commission of inquiry said that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.

Across a three-page resolution, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) presented a litany of actions undertaken by Israel throughout the 22-month-long war that it recognises as constituting genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Around 65,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza in the nearly two-year war.

UN-backed health experts have also declared a famine in Gaza City.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the genocide report was based on “Hamas lies” and poor research, calling it an “embarrassment to the legal profession”.

Netanyahu has repeatedly denied starvation is taking place in Gaza and has said that where there is hunger, it is the fault of aid agencies and Hamas.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the UK’s decision, saying it would help pave the way for the “state of Palestine to live side by side with the state of Israel in security, peace and good neighbourliness”.

Palestine is currently recognised as a state by around 75% of the UN’s 193 member states, but has no internationally agreed boundaries, capital or army – making recognition largely symbolic.

The two-state solution refers to the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, broadly along the lines that existed prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Due to Israel’s military occupation in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority, set up in the wake of peace agreements in the 1990s, is not in full control of its land or people. In Gaza, where Israel is also the occupying power, Hamas has been the sole ruler since 2007.

UK ministers have highlighted the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law, as a key factor in the decision to recognise Palestinian statehood.

Mohammed Jarrar, mayor of the West Bank city of Jenin, told the BBC that “this Israeli government wants to annex the West Bank” – but stressed that recognition was important as “it confirms the fact that the Palestinian people possess a state, even if it is under occupation”.

Netanyahu repeated his intentions on Sunday, saying “we doubled Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and we will continue on this path”.

Far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben Gvir responded to the news by calling for Israel to annex the West Bank and dismantle the Palestinian Authority.

The United States has struck Iranian soil, hitting three of the country’s nuclear facilities.

US President Donald Trump is threatening more strikes if peace is not achieved.

But Iran has hit back, striking central and northern Israel.

So is this a major escalation in the conflict between Iran and Israel?

Is there a real danger of nuclear fallout?

How likely is Iran to strike US bases?

And is the Middle East moving closer to a regional war?

Presenter: Imran Khan

Guests:

Zohreh Kharazmi – Assistant professor in the Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran

Tariq Rauf – Former head of the Verification and Security Policy Coordination Office at the International Atomic Energy Agency

Matthew Bryza – Former US National Security Council official at the White House and diplomat

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Sunday issued a stark warning to Iran against retaliating on U.S. targets in the Middle East while also predicting Israel and Iran would “soon” make a deal to end their escalating conflict.

Trump in an early morning social media post said the United States “had nothing to do with the attack on Iran” as Israel and Iran traded missile attacks for the third straight day. Iran, however, has said that it would hold the U.S. — which has provided Israel with much of its deep arsenal of weaponry — responsible for its backing of Israel’s military actions.

Israel targeted Iran’s Defense Ministry headquarters in Tehran and sites it alleged were associated with Iran’s nuclear program, while Iranian missiles evaded Israeli air defenses and slammed into buildings deep inside Israel.

“If we are attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before,” Trump said.

Hours later, Trump took to social media again, saying, “Iran and Israel should make a deal, and will make a deal.”

The U.S. president claimed he has a track record for de-escalating conflicts, and that he would get Israel and Iran to cease hostilities, “just like I got India and Pakistan to make” after the two countries’ recent cross-border confrontation. The U.S. was among a multinational diplomatic effort that defused that crisis.

India struck targets inside Pakistan after militants in April massacred 26 tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Pakistan has denied any links to the attackers. Following India’s strikes in Pakistan, the two sides exchanged heavy fire along their de facto borders, followed by missile and drone strikes into each other’s territories, mainly targeting military installations and airbases.

It was the most serious confrontation in decades between the countries. Trump on Sunday repeated his claim, disputed by India, that the two sides agreed to a ceasefire after he had offered to help both nations with trade if they agreed to de-escalate.

Trump also pointed to efforts by his administration during his first term to mediate disputes between Serbia and Kosovo and Egypt and Ethiopia.

“Likewise, we will have PEACE, soon, between Israel and Iran!” Trump said. “Many calls and meetings now taking place. I do a lot, and never get credit for anything, but that’s OK, the PEOPLE understand. MAKE THE MIDDLE EAST GREAT AGAIN!”

The growing conflict between Israel and Iran is testing Trump, who ran on a promise to quickly end the wars in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine and build a foreign policy that more broadly favors steering clear of foreign conflicts.

Trump has struggled to find an endgame to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, which show no signs of abating.

And after criticizing President Biden during last year’s presidential campaign for persuading Israel against carrying out strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, Trump himself made the case to the Israelis to give diplomacy a chance.

His administration’s push on Tehran to give up its nuclear program came after the U.S. and other world powers in 2015 reached a long-term, comprehensive nuclear agreement that limited Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday about the growing Israel-Iran conflict. And Trump is set to travel later Sunday to Canada for the Group of 7 summit, where the Mideast crisis will loom large.

Some influential backers of Trump are him urging to keep the U.S. out of Israel’s escalating conflict with Iran.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson are among the prominent hard-right backers of Trump who have argued that voters supported his election because he would not involve the nation in foreign conflicts.

Kirk said last week that before Israel launched the strikes on Iran he was concerned the situation could lead to “a massive schism in MAGA and potentially disrupt our momentum and our insanely successful presidency.”

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul praised Trump, saying he showed restraint and that he hoped the president’s “instincts will prevail.”

“So, I think it’s going to be very hard to come out of this and have a negotiated settlement,” Paul said in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” ”I see more war and more carnage. And it’s not the U.S.’s job to be involved in this war.”

Madhani writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Gary Fields contributed to this report.

1 of 8 | Ukraine launched “Operation Spiderweb” on Sunday, targeting Belaya Air Base in Russia’s Irkutsk region in Siberia, approximately 3,000 miles from Ukraine, using drones to strike its enemy’s strategic bombers. This image, taken from a video released by Ukraine, shows Tu-95 Bear and Tu-22 Backfire bombers, as well as A-50 Mainstay airborne early warning and control aircraft under attack. Screenshot via Ministry of Defense of Ukraine | License Photo

June 4 (UPI) — Russian President Vladimir Putin will respond to the Ukrainian drone strikes that destroyed Russian military aircraft in several locations on Sunday, President Donald Trump said on Wednesday.

Trump spoke with Putin by phone for more than an hour on Wednesday and said it was “not a conversation that will lead to immediate peace,” CNBC reported the president saying in a Truth Social post.

Putin told Trump the Russian military will retaliate against Ukraine for the drone strikes conducted during a long-planned operation dubbed “spiderweb.”

The drone strikes destroyed more than 40 Russian heavy bombers that are capable of deploying missiles that contain nuclear warheads.

Putin said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is disrupting peace talks with such attacks.

Putin aide Yury Ushakov said the conversation lasted about 70 minutes and was the fourth between the two world leaders.

“It was emphasized that Ukraine tried to derail these talks by carrying out targeted attacks on entirely civilian targets and civilians on direct orders from the Kiev regime,” Ushakov said in an online announcement.

“These attacks unequivocally constitute an act of terrorism under international law,” Ushakov said. “The Kiev regime has essentially degenerated into a terrorist organization.”

Trump said the United States had no advance knowledge of the drone strikes, Ushakov said, adding that the two presidents agreed to continue working to achieve peace between Ukraine and Russia.

Putin and Trump also discussed matters in the Middle East, the conflict between India and Pakistan, and a potential restoration of cooperation between Russia and the United States regarding various global issues.

“We also discussed Iran and the fact that time is running out on Iran’s decision pertaining to nuclear weapons, which must be made quickly!” Trump said in his Truth Social post.

Putin said he could assist with nuclear talks with Iran, which Trump is working to stop from developing nuclear weapons, the BBC reported.

Ushakov credited Trump with halting the recent armed conflict between India and Pakistan and said both agreed their phone conversation was “positive and highly productive.”