President Emmanuel Macron has announced that France will recognise the State of Palestine, with a formal declaration to be made at the United Nations General Assembly this coming September. Meanwhile, preparations are underway for the “High-Level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution..” This conference was initially planned to take place at the UN headquarters in New York last June, under the leadership of the French and Saudi governments, but it was postponed due to the Israeli attack on Iran.

The ongoing tragedy in Gaza – the repeated massacres of tens of thousands of innocent civilians who have died under the bombs, and who are now dying of hunger and deprivation, or being shot while trying to reach food – should make it clear to everyone how urgent it is to halt the military attacks that are causing this slaughter. At the same time, it highlights how indispensable a solution to the Palestinian question has become. This is a solution that the Holy See has been persistently calling for over many decades, and which cannot happen without the active contribution of the international community, as well as the countries directly involved.

It is useful to recall that the Holy See signed a basic agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) 25 years ago. Then, ten years ago, it signed a Comprehensive Agreement with the State of Palestine, which entered into force in January 2016. This decision and recognition are consistent with the concern expressed by Popes since 1948 about the condition of the Holy Places and the fate of the Palestinian people. Pope Paul VI was the first Pope to explicitly affirm that Palestinians were and are a people, not merely a group of war refugees. In his 1975 Christmas message, he asked the children of the Jewish people, whose sovereign State of Israel was already established, “to recognise the rights and legitimate aspirations of another people, who have also suffered for a long time – the Palestinian people.”

Read more: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/world/news/2025-07/state-of-palestine-responsibility-international-community.html

By Andrea Tornielli | vaticannews