Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot says his country will recognise Palestine this month and impose 12 ‘firm sanctions’ on Israel.
Belgium will recognise the State of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) later this month, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Prevot has announced.
“Palestine will be recognised by Belgium at the UN session! And firm sanctions will be imposed against the Israeli government,” Prevot, who is also the deputy prime minister, wrote on the social media platform X early on Tuesday.
Israel will face 12 sanctions from Belgium, Prevot said, including a ban on the import of products from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and “a review of public procurement policies with Israeli companies”.
Prevot, a member of Belgium’s centrist Christian Democrat party, said Belgium was making the pledge “in light of the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Palestine, particularly in Gaza”.
The foreign minister also said that recognition would only be formalised once the last captive has been released from Gaza and “Hamas no longer has any role in managing Palestine”.
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, from the Flemish nationalist party, said last month that recognising Palestine should be linked to strict conditions, according to Belgium’s Belga news agency.
At the end of July, President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would recognise Palestinian statehood when world leaders meet for the UNGA.
France and Saudi Arabia will co-host the meeting on Palestinian recognition during the UNGA on September 22. Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom have also said they plan to recognise Palestine this month, also with conditions.
As of April this year, some 147 countries, representing 75 percent of UN members, had already recognised Palestinian statehood.
Israel and the United States have strongly criticised countries moving to recognise Palestine, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio describing France’s announcement as a “reckless decision” that “only serves Hamas propaganda”.
Rubio has since announced that US President Donald Trump’s administration will deny and revoke visas for Palestinian officials in advance of the UNGA in New York.
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, warned last year that a new illegal Israeli settlement would be established in the occupied West Bank for every country that recognises Palestine.
Smotrich is one of two far-right Israeli ministers facing sanctions from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, has implored that countries take measures to end Israel’s war on Gaza, including by imposing sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel.
The 12 new sanctions announced by Prevot on Tuesday appear to be wide-ranging in nature, although they primarily relate to the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Last month, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp resigned after he said he could not secure cabinet support for “meaningful” additional sanctions against Israel amid its brutal war on Gaza.
On August 22, a UN-backed monitor officially declared that famine is occurring in the northern Gaza Strip and is projected to spread to central and southern areas by the end of September.
Belgium’s decision to recognise Palestine comes as Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 63,459 people and wounded 160,256 more.
In July, Belgian prosecutors referred a war crimes complaint against two Israeli soldiers to the International Criminal Court (ICC), following allegations that they participated in atrocities in Gaza.
