UK's Starmer to convene cabinet meeting, most likely to discuss Gaza

LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will convene a cabinet meeting next week, a government source said on Sunday, most likely to discuss the situation in Gaza after coming under growing pressure to recognise a Palestinian state.

The Financial Times, which initially reported the story, said ministers, currently in a summer recess until September 1, would reconvene to discuss Gaza.

Starmer's office did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment.

The recall comes after Starmer said on Friday the British government would recognise a Palestinian state only as part of a negotiated peace deal, disappointing many in his Labour Party who want him to follow France in taking swifter action.

President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday France would recognise a Palestinian state, a plan that drew strong condemnation from Israel and the United States, after similar moves from Spain, Norway and Ireland last year.

More than 220 members of parliament in the UK, mostly Labour members representing about a third of the House of Commons, wrote to Starmer on Friday urging him to recognise a Palestinian state.

Successive British governments have said they will formally recognise a Palestinian state when the time is right, without setting a timetable or specifying the necessary conditions.

Starmer's approach has been complicated by the arrival in Scotland on Friday of U.S. President Donald Trump, with whom he has built warm relations. In foreign policy terms, Britain has rarely diverged from the United States.

Israel has been facing growing international criticism, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government rejects, over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

(Reporting Catarina Demony and Elizabeth Piper;Editing by Clelia Oziel and Giles Elgood)