External affairs minister S Jaishankar has reiterated India’s support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, saying a durable and lasting peace in West Asia requires the establishment of separate Israeli and Palestinian states.
It is not for the first time that New Delhi has backed the two-state solution.
“We strongly believe that a durable and lasting peace requires a two-state solution,” he said during his address to the UN General Assembly on Saturday. “In the meantime, India is contributing to humanitarian assistance and relief efforts for the Palestinian people,” Jaishankar said. Earlier, the ministry of external affairs (MEA) said it favours the establishment of a “sovereign, independent and viable State of Palestine within secure and recognized borders, living side by side in peace with Israel”.
Last year, the government backed Palestine’s membership of the United Nations while condemning the October 7, 2023 terror attacks on Israel and the loss of civilian lives in the subsequent Israel-Hamas conflict. The MEA last year said that India has provided around 70 MT of humanitarian aid to Palestinians since the beginning of the conflict, including 16.5 MT of medicines and medical supplies sent in two tranches in October and November 2023. India also sent 65 MT of medicines to the UN Relief and Works Agency and the Palestine Ministry of Health in October and November 2024. Over the last five years, India has completed projects worth $26 million in Palestine, according to the government.
“Yesterday, a serial practitioner of terrorism misrepresented facts before this Assembly,” Jaishankar said, in a veiled reference to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who had raised the Kashmir issue in his UN address on Friday.
