Mientras la guerra de Gaza continúa, Francia y Arabia Saudita presiden este lunes una reunión de alto perfil en las Naciones Unidas destinada a impulsar el apoyo a una solución de dos Estados para el conflicto israelí-palestino. Se espera que más naciones reconozcan un Estado palestino, desafiando así a Israel y Estados Unidos.

Se espera que la reunión y la ampliación del reconocimiento del Estado palestino tengan poco o ningún impacto real sobre el terreno, donde Israel está librando otra gran ofensiva en la Franja de Gaza y expandiendo los asentamientos en la Cisjordania ocupada.

El Reino Unido, Canadá, Australia y Portugal reconocieron el Estado de Palestina el domingo, y los palestinos esperan que un total de 10 países, incluida Francia, lo hagan en los próximos días. Aproximadamente tres cuartas partes de los 193 miembros de las Naciones Unidas reconocen a Palestina, pero las principales naciones occidentales se habían negado hasta hace poco, argumentando que solo se lograría mediante negociaciones con Israel.

Los palestinos han acogido con satisfacción los avances hacia el reconocimiento, con la esperanza de que algún día conduzcan a la independencia. “Este es un comienzo, o un rayo de esperanza, para el pueblo palestino”, declaró Fawzi Nour al-Deen el domingo, con una bolsa en la cabeza, uniéndose a miles de personas que huían hacia el sur desde la ciudad de Gaza. “Somos un pueblo que merece un Estado”.

A continuación, la cobertura minuto a minuto:

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., wants to jam Senate Democrats with the GOP’s short-term funding extension, but so far they aren’t ready to play ball.

Republicans and Democrats in the upper chamber blocked dueling continuing resolutions (CRs) from both parties last week and have now left Washington, D.C., until Sept. 29, effectively giving lawmakers in the upper chamber only two working days before the midnight deadline on Sept. 30.

Both sides are at an impasse. Senate Republicans argue that the «clean» extension, which would last until Nov. 21 and lacks any partisan policy riders, is everything Democrats dreamed of when they controlled the upper chamber.

TRUMP-APPROVED PLAN TO AVERT GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN SCUTTLED BY SENATE

Senate Democrats led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., however, argue that they want a seat at the negotiating table and are adamant that expiring Obamacare premium subsidies must be dealt with now, rather than at the end of the year.

«They’re trying to use what they think is leverage to get a bunch of stuff done,» Thune said. «It’s never going to happen. I mean, can you imagine anything in that bill that they sent that we voted down today, passing in the Republican House of Representatives? Absolutely not. It’s just not serious.»

Democrats’ proposal included a permanent extension to the expiring Obamacare subsidies, clawbacks of canceled funding for NPR and PBS, and it would have repealed the healthcare provisions in President Donald Trump’s «big, beautiful bill» — policy that would reverse the nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts while also getting rid of the $50 billion rural hospital fund.

«They’re not being serious,» Thune said. «This is just a cold-blooded partisan political attempt to try and score political points with a left-wing base.»

Though he has not taken the option off the table, it’s unlikely that Thune would cut this recess short. Instead, he wants to use the impending deadline to back Senate Democrats into a corner. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., played into that strategy, too, when he announced that the House would not return until after the funding deadline.

Thune is ready to bring the same CR passed by House Republicans last week to the floor.

SENATE REPUBLICANS BLOCK DEMOCRATS’ ‘FILTHY’ COUNTEROFFER AS SHUTDOWN DEADLINE LOOMS

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks with reporters outside the Senate Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 10, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., railed against the likelihood that lawmakers wouldn’t return to Capitol Hill until the deadline was directly on them.

«The Republicans want to shut down,» he said. «A) they refuse to negotiate, and B) they’re sending us home for the week before the government shuts down. So you know this, this seems like a planned shutdown. As far as I can tell, there’s zero effort, zero effort by Republicans to try to solve this problem.»

Schumer and Democrats have pinned the blame on Trump and argue that his insistence that Thune only needs Republican votes was a sign that Democrats should be cut out of the process. Thune will need Democratic votes to advance through the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate.

The top Senate Democrat hoped Thune and Republicans would «now see that the only way to avoid a shutdown is negotiate with Democrats.»

«We’re saying clearly, let’s sit down. Let’s figure this out,» Schumer said. «But Republicans have now left town with no sign they want to avoid a shutdown in a week. They left town. Donald Trump is the shutdown president and Senate Republicans are following him over the cliff.»

THUNE PANS DEMOCRATS’ SHUTDOWN STANCE AS ‘BORDERLINE PATHOLOGICAL,’ ‘LIKE A DISEASE’

President Donald Trump during a bilateral meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, not pictured, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on April 7, 2025 (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., also sent a letter on Saturday to Trump demanding a meeting, where the pair charged that «Republicans would bear the responsibility» of a partial shutdown.

«As a result, it is now your obligation to meet with us directly to reach an agreement to keep the government open and address the Republican healthcare crisis,» they wrote.

Trump said on Saturday that he would «love to meet with them, but I don’t think it’s going to have any impact.»

A day before, he didn’t appear optimistic that a shutdown could be averted.

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«I think we could very well end up with a closed country for a period of time,» Trump said.

Thune may have defections within his own ranks to contend with, too. Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voted against the GOP’s bill. Only Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., crossed the aisle to support it.

Paul’s vote against the bill wasn’t a surprise. However, Murkowski, who is an appropriator, contended that she wanted a better bill on the floor than the one presented by Republicans and charged that the back-to-back failures of both bills was a «messaging exercise.»

«I want to project a message of something that can actually get us through this impasse,» she said. «And so my message is a short-term CR that also addresses three past appropriations bills that we’ve already done. We should include those. We should include a short-term fix of the premium tax credits.» 

As world leaders gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, French President Emmanuel Macron is seizing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to stake out global leadership — and, critics argue, to position himself as a counterweight to President Donald Trump.

Renewing his call for recognition of a Palestinian state, Macron has also put forward a proposal for a multinational force to take over from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) «the day after» the Gaza war, according to The Times of Israel. 

For Macron, the United Nations General Assembly is a stage to project France as an alternative power. «Macron’s policy on the Israel-Palestine conflict reflects his broader ambitions on France’s foreign policy, that is, the idea that the country, as a middle European power, can offer an alternative to the U.S.-China competition,» Jean-Loup Samaan, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute, told Fox News Digital. «In this specific case, Macron believes that his push for a Palestinian state will increase French credibility in the Arab world and the so-called ‘Global South.’»

MACRON STRUTS ON WORLD STAGE AS REVOLT OVER FRANCE’S SOARING DEBT PUTS HIS PM ON THE BRINK

«We have to recognize the legitimate right of Palestinian people to have a state,» Macron said in an interview broadcast Thursday on Israel’s Channel 12. «If you don’t give a political perspective, in fact, you just put them in the hands of those who are just proposing a security approach, an aggressive approach.» He went further, denouncing Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza City as «absolutely unacceptable» and «a huge mistake.»

The comments infuriated both Israel and the United States, which argue that recognition emboldens extremists and rewards Hamas, the group responsible for the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre.

Macron, however, insists recognition is the only way forward, reviving the long-stalled two-state solution. More than 145 countries already recognize Palestine, and European allies, including the U.K., Canada, Australia, Portugal, Malta, Belgium, and Luxembourg, are expected to follow France’s lead in the coming days.

A man holds a sign reading «Free Palestine» during a demonstration at the Place de la Republique in Paris on June 9, 2025. (REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier/File Photo)

Yet analysts warn Macron’s track record suggests otherwise. «If you want to know how UN-sponsored peacekeepers do with terrorist groups in the region, we have a 20-year case study in UNIFIL, which enabled rather than denied Hezbollah the ability to grow into a massive military threat,» Richard Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital.

«Macron is certainly driven by his beleaguered domestic political situation and the large French Muslim population, but in his own mind he’s also been down this road in Lebanon, where France has historic equities. The record is pretty clear: Macron has never delivered on anything; security improvements have only come through U.S. pressure and Israeli military might,» Goldberg said.

Just days before Macron’s push, Trump met with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Jared Kushner to discuss Gaza’s future — and is set to hold a meeting tomorrow with Arab leaders on «the day after,» sources confirm to Fox News Digital. The overlap has fueled speculation that Macron is maneuvering to outshine Trump and claim the mantle of statesman-in-chief.

TRUMP WHISPERS ‘CRAZY’ PUTIN DEAL THEORY TO MACRON IN HOT MIC MOMENT

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump after a meeting at the White House on April 7, 2025, in Washington. (REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt)

Goldberg added bluntly: «He may perceive himself that way, but I don’t think many in Washington spend a lot of time thinking about him.»

Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, called Macron’s maneuvering «a blatant power-grab.» She told Fox News Digital: «The fact is that would-be Emperor Macron has no clothes. The promise he is waving around of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ ‘promise’ to soon hold elections and abandon dictatorship and terror screams ‘scam.’»

«At home, foreign policy topics are not driving the current political troubles, which are primarily focused on France’s need to reduce its fiscal deficit,» Samaan noted. «I think Macron’s initiative on Palestine has more to do with his personal aspirations in terms of legacy. He’ll leave office in 2027.»

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The proposed Gaza force, modeled on UNIFIL in Lebanon where France has long played a role, would demand French resources and likely face opposition in parliament from both the far left and far right, and without U.S. endorsement, Israeli buy-in, or domestic consensus in France, the initiative could stall before it begins.