The U.K., Australia and Canada formally recognized a Palestinian state on Sunday, prompting an angry response from Israel, which ruled out the prospect.

The coordinated initiative from the three Commonwealth nations and longtime allies reflects growing outrage at Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza and the steps taken by the Israeli government to thwart efforts to create a Palestinian state, including by the continued expansion of settlements in the West Bank.

France and Saudi Arabia hope to use this year's gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly and the increasingly horrific war in the Gaza Strip to inject new urgency into the quest for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Those efforts include a new road map for eventual Palestinian statehood in territories Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war, and moves by several Western countries to join a global majority in recognizing such a state before it has been established.

The Israeli military said two projectiles were launched from northern Gaza on Sunday, one of which was intercepted while the other landed in southern Israel.

"Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in the areas of Lakhish and Ashdod, two projectiles were launched from the northern Gaza Strip," the military said.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer will on Sunday announce a decision on the UK's recognition of Palestinian statehood, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said.

Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa has departed for the United States, state media reported Sunday, on a landmark trip that will see the former jihadist address the United Nations General Assembly.

French President Emmanuel Macron scored a major diplomatic coup by declaring his intention to recognize a Palestinian state but the move risks being followed by bitter retaliation from Israel while not providing concrete benefits to the Palestinians, analysts and sources say.

Macron sent a shockwave through the international community with his pledge over the summer. His announcement in a speech in New York at a conference on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on Monday is now to be matched by recognition by nine other states including Australia, Belgium, Canada and the UK, according to the Elysee.

The director of Al Shifa hospital was on duty Saturday marshalling the facility's response to Israel's assault on Gaza City when two victims killed in a strike were delivered to the ward: his brother and his sister-in-law.

"I was shocked and devastated to see the bodies of my brother and his wife," said Mohammed Abu Salmiya, who was working in the emergency department of the territory's main hospital at the time.

France's president on Friday welcomed the arrest this week in the occupied West Bank of a key Palestinian suspect in a 1982 terror attack in Paris, calling it the result of "excellent cooperation" with the Palestinian Authority.

The Israeli military warned on Friday it would operate with "unprecedented force" in Gaza City, telling residents to flee southwards as it presses its ground offensive on the territory's largest urban center.

Israel has pummeled Gaza City with strikes and tank fire in its bid to seize it, nearly two years into the war that has devastated the Palestinian territory and left the Gaza City area gripped by a UN-declared famine.

A moment of truth: that's how French President Emmanuel Macron sees the recognition of a Palestinian state by France and other Western nations, with the hope to make it a landmark step in his push for peace in the Middle East as the devastating war in Gaza continues.

Weakened and unpopular at home, Macron is more than ever taking center stage in international talks. He is to formally declare France's recognition of a Palestinian state on Monday in New York at a United Nations conference co-chaired with Saudi Arabia, as the U.N. General Assembly starts.