Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez walks, in front of Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, and Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares, on the day of a meeting at Moncloa Palace in Madrid, Spain, Sept. 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Susana Vera

Spain, hosting a high-level meeting on Friday of several Muslim and European countries on ways to end the Gaza war, called for a clear schedule for the international community to implement a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We meet to make another push for the end of the war in Gaza, for a way out of the unending spiral of violence between the Palestinians, the Israelis … That way is clear. The implementation of the two-state solution is the only way,” Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told reporters.

In attendance were his counterparts including from Norway and Slovenia, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, and members of the Arab-Islamic Contact Group for Gaza that includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey.

Albares said there was “a clear willingness” among the participants, who notably do not include Israel, “to move on from words to actions and to make strides towards a clear schedule for the effective implementation” of a two-state solution, starting with a Palestinian state joining the United Nations.

Israel was not invited because it was not part of the contact group, Albares said, adding though that “we will be delighted to see Israel at any table where peace and the two-state solution are discussed.”

On May 28, Spain, Norway, and Ireland formally recognized a unified Palestinian state ruled by the Palestinian Authority comprising the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital. With them, 146 of the 193 member states of the United Nations now recognize Palestinian statehood.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has repeatedly described the co-existence of two sovereign states on the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine as the only viable path to peace in the region.

However, Spain has been among the most vocal critics of Israel since Oct. 7, when Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists invaded the Jewish state from neighboring Gaza and launched the current war. The terrorists murdered 1,200 people and abducted over 250 others as hostages in their rampage, the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign in Gaza aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities.

A two-state solution was set out in the 1991 Madrid Conference and the 1993-95 Oslo Accords, but the peace process has been moribund for years.

However, the search for a peaceful solution has been given new urgency by the 11-month-long war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas as well as escalating violence in the West Bank.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide has told Reuters the meeting also needed to discuss the demobilization of Hamas — which controlled Gaza prior to the war — and the normalization of ties between Israel and some other states, notably Saudi Arabia.