In a landmark announcement Monday, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot confirmed he has directed his ministerial team to finalize preparations for Belgium’s formal recognition of an independent Palestinian state. The long-awaited policy shift comes just after Hamas carried out a key prerequisite set by the Belgian government: dissolving its 18-year governing administration in the Gaza Strip.
Speaking to public broadcaster VRT, Prevot acknowledged uncertainty over whether the preparations will be completed in time for this Friday’s scheduled council of ministers meeting, but emphasized that the issue will be brought to the body for a vote in the near future. “I don’t know if we will be ready by Friday, but it will be on the table soon,” Prevot told reporters.
Hamas’s formal dissolution of its Gaza governance clears the path for a handover of power to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a Cairo-based body made up of independent Palestinian technocrats drawn from the Gaza Strip. This new administrative structure was designed to oversee daily civilian affairs in the enclave under the terms of the September 2025 ceasefire agreement mediated by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt.
The pathway to this step was laid out more than a year ago, when Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever announced at United Nations headquarters in New York that Belgium would recognize Palestinian statehood only after two core conditions were met: the release of all remaining hostages held in Gaza, and the full withdrawal of Hamas from the territory’s governing institutions. A member of the Belgian parliament whose party had long pushed for recognition noted Monday that a cross-party agreement with the federal government had been reached the previous summer after months of negotiations, saying “Belgium must not break its word” on its commitment to recognize Palestine once conditions were met.
If Belgium proceeds with recognition, it will join a growing wave of European nations that have formalized their recognition of Palestinian statehood following the outbreak of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in October 2023, which the report notes has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians to date, with thousands more still missing and presumed dead under rubble. Spain, Ireland, and Norway became the first Western European states to grant formal recognition in 2024, joining more than 140 existing United Nations member states that already recognize Palestinian statehood. Most recently, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia announced their recognition in September 2025, a move that was quickly followed by France and Portugal. The wave of recognitions has drawn sharp condemnation from both the United States and Israel, which have opposed unilateral recognition of Palestine by Western nations.