On Friday, India backed a resolution at the UN General Assembly supporting the ‘New York Declaration’ that calls for resolving the Palestine issue peacefully and advancing the two-state solution.
The France-led resolution was adopted with 142 votes in favor, 10 against, and 12 abstentions. The US, Israel, Argentina, and Hungary were among those who opposed it.
Formally titled ‘Endorsement of the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution’, the text was circulated at a high-level UN conference in July co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia.
The declaration urged collective action to end the Gaza war and achieve a just and lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the two-state framework. It called on Israel to commit publicly to the two-state solution, recognize a sovereign Palestinian state, halt violence, settlement activities, land grabs, and annexation in occupied territories including East Jerusalem, and renounce any annexation projects or settlement policies.
It reaffirmed the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, warning that without decisive steps toward the two-state solution and strong international guarantees, the conflict would deepen and peace in the region would remain elusive.
Stressing that the war in Gaza “must end now,” the declaration underlined that Gaza is an inseparable part of a Palestinian state and must be unified with the West Bank, free from occupation, siege, territorial reduction, or forced displacement.
