With European and Islamic participation, Spain hosts a meeting on establishing a state for the Palestinians

The Spanish and Norwegian governments said on Thursday that foreign ministers from several Muslim and European countries will meet in Madrid on Friday to discuss how to implement a two-state solution to the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares will host the meeting, which will be attended by his European counterparts, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and members of the Arab-Islamic Contact Group on the Gaza Strip.

The international community has long viewed the two-state solution proposed at the 1991 Madrid Conference and the 1993-95 Oslo Accords as the best way to resolve a decades-long conflict, but the peace process has been stalled for years.

But the need to find a peaceful solution has taken on new importance because of the 11-month-old war in the Gaza Strip between the occupation and the Palestinian resistance movement (Hamas), the bloodiest war so far in the conflict.

Albares hosted a diplomatic meeting with the Gaza Contact Group on May 29, in which participants discussed next steps toward effective implementation of the two-state solution.

In an interview with Reuters, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said that Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa will participate in the meeting in Madrid.

It is noteworthy that on May 28, Spain, Norway and Ireland officially recognized a Palestinian state comprising the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, governed by the Palestinian Authority and with East Jerusalem as its capital. In addition to the three countries, 146 of the 193 member states of the United Nations now recognize the Palestinian state.

With American support, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7, leaving more than 136,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and deadly famine.

In contempt of the international community, Israel continues the war, ignoring the UN Security Council resolution to stop it immediately, and the International Court of Justice’s orders to take measures to prevent acts of genocide and to improve the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into the largest prison in the world, besieging it for 18 years, and its war has forced about two million of its citizens, numbering about 2.3 million Palestinians, to flee in catastrophic conditions, with a severe and deliberate shortage of food, water and medicine.