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British Prime Min­is­ter Keir Starmer con­firmed Sun­day that the U.K. is for­mal­ly rec­og­niz­ing a Pales­tin­ian state de­spite vo­cif­er­ous op­po­si­tion from the U.S. and Is­rael.

His an­nounce­ment fol­lows those from Cana­da and Aus­tralia, in what ap­pears to be a co­or­di­nat­ed ini­tia­tive from the Com­mon­wealth na­tions.

Starmer, who has faced pres­sure to take a hard­er line on Is­rael with­in his own gov­ern­ing Labour Par­ty, said the move is in­tend­ed “to re­vive the hope of peace for the Pales­tini­ans and Is­raelis” but that it wasn’t a re­ward for Hamas, which he stressed will have no role in any fu­ture gov­er­nance of the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple.