RAMALLAH, Palestine / ISTANBUL

Palestine on Thursday welcomed France’s plan to recognize a Palestinian state in June.

A Foreign Ministry statement called the French plan “a step in the right direction to protect the two-state solution and achieve peace.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that Paris is making plans to recognize a Palestinian state and could do so as early as June.

“We must move toward recognition, and we will do so in the coming months,” Macron told France 5 television. “I’m not doing it for unity, or to please this or that person. I’m doing it because at some point it will be fair.”

France plans to co-host with Saudi Arabia an international conference for a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The Foreign Ministry called on countries that have not recognized a Palestinian state to do so and support efforts for full Palestinian membership in the UN.

Currently, 147 of the 193 UN member states recognize the state of Palestine.

More than 50,800 Palestinians have been killed in a brutal Israeli onslaught in Gaza since October 2023, most of them women and children.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.