While mainly symbolic, the UK hopes this action could bolster diplomatic pressure to resolve the Gaza conflict and lay groundwork for a durable peace featuring two states coexisting side-by-side.

Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, who served as foreign secretary until recently, mentioned that Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to announce the recognition of a Palestinian state later Sunday.

France and the UK have played significant roles in Middle Eastern politics over the last century, particularly after World War I, when they divided the region after the Ottoman Empire’s defeat.

In that division, the UK took governance over what was then called Palestine and issued the 1917 Balfour Declaration, supporting the idea of a “national home for the Jewish people.”

However, the second part of the declaration has been largely neglected over the decades.

It noted “that nothing shall be done, nothing which may prejudice the civil and religious rights” of the Palestinian people.

Lammy, who will represent the UK at the United Nations this week, remarked in July that the declaration’s promises were not upheld and described it as a “historical injustice that still unfolds.”

The Palestinian head of mission in the UK Husam Zomlot told the BBC that recognition would right a colonial-era wrong.

“The issue today is ending the denial of our existence that started 108 years ago, in 1917,” he said.

And I think today, the British people should celebrate a day when history is being corrected, when wrongs are being righted, when recognition of the wrongs of the past are beginning to be corrected.”

The UK has for decades supported an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, but insisted recognition must come as part of a peace plan to achieve a two-state solution.

However, the government has become increasingly worried that such a solution is becoming all but impossible – not only because of the razing of Gaza and displacement of most of its population during nearly two years of conflict, but because Israel’s government is aggressively expanding settlements in the West Bank, land Palestinians want for their future state.

Much of the world regards Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, which is ostensibly run by the Palestinian Authority, as illegal.

“We are working to reform the Palestinian Authority, and we have to keep two states alive for the children of both Gaza and the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” said Lammy.