by Timothy Edward, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced today that Canada has officially recognized Palestine as a state.

“Today, Canada recognizes the State of Palestine and offers our partnership in building the promise of a peaceful future for both the State of Palestine and the State of Israel. Canada does so as part of a coordinated international effort to preserve the possibility of a two-state solution.”

A number of other countries are recognizing Palestinian statehood at the United Nations General Assembly this month, including France, the U.K., Belgium, Portugal, Luxembourg, Malta, Andorra and Australia.

Prior to a wave of announcements regarding Palestinian statehood from these countries this summer, only 147 out of the UN’s 193 member states officially recognized Palestine as a state. These included Iceland, Ireland and Spain, but none of the G7 countries.

In July, Carney said that although Canada has long supported a two-state solution to allow Israel and Palestine to co-exist peacefully as sovereign states, brought about by a peace process, “regrettably this approach is no longer tenable” due to the actions of both Hamas and the Israeli government in recent years — namely Hamas’s terrorist attack of Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s role in the humanitarian disaster in Gaza and plans to annex the West Bank.