From the Liveblog of
Monday, September 22, 2025
Palestinian Mission to the UK marks recognition of state with flag-raising ceremony
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About 400 people gather at the Palestinian Mission to the UK to mark Britain’s recognition of the Palestinian state.
A crowd claps and cheers as the Palestinian flag is raised in front of the building, in Hammersmith in west London, during a ceremony.
Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian head of mission in the UK, thanks the people of Britain for supporting their cause.
“We will always remember how you stood by our sides, on the right side of history,” he says.
Holding up a plaque reading “Embassy of the State of Palestine,” Zomlot says it will be put up soon, marking the mission’s transition to an embassy, “pending some legal work, some bureaucratic work”.
He called the recognition move an “acknowledgement of a historic injustice” at a time of “unimaginable suffering” for the Palestinian people in the war in Gaza.
He says the UK’s recognition has particular resonance as Britain was pivotal in laying the groundwork for the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, through the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
Zomlot had said Sunday that recognition must be followed by action, including sanctioning Israel and reversing the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said today that the Palestinian Authority could now “set up an embassy and an ambassador in the UK.”
“We will set out the diplomatic steps with the Palestinian Authority, there will be a series of different stages and processes to go through,” Cooper told the BBC. “On that practical side, the most important thing is that it’s part of that process to keep everyone working towards a two-state solution,” she added.
Questioned on when the British consulate in east Jerusalem would become an embassy, Cooper said it had been there for longer than the Israeli state, “so it will continue for now, and we will set out the diplomatic process with the Palestinian Authority”.
Following Sunday’s announcement, Britain’s foreign ministry updated its travel advice page to remove the reference to “Occupied Palestinian territories”, replacing it with “Palestine.”
The Times of Israel Community.