WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Growing international frustration with Washington over the war in Gaza has spilled into the open at the UN General Assembly this week, with US allies recognizing a Palestinian state in a major test for President Donald Trump’s Middle East policy.

After promising at the start of his second term to quickly end the war between Israel and Hamas, Trump now looks increasingly like a bystander as Israeli forces escalate their operations in the Palestinian enclave, more than 22 months after Hamas sparked the war with its October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre in southern Israel, and he remains reluctant to rein in Washington’s closest regional ally.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blindsided Trump with a strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar earlier this month that all but doomed the Trump administration’s latest effort to secure a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal.

Israel since then has launched a ground assault in Gaza City that the US accepted without objection, amid global condemnation of a widening humanitarian crisis in the coastal strip.

And defying Trump’s warnings against what he called a gift to Hamas, a group of US allies, including Britain, France, Canada and Australia, announced just before and during the UN gathering their recognition of the state of Palestine in a dramatic diplomatic shift.

In his address to the General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump backed Netanyahu’s condemnations of the wave of recognitions of Palestine, declaring that the move rewards Hamas for October 7 and other atrocities, and encourages further conflict. “Instead of giving in to Hamas’s ransom demands,” he said, “those who want peace should be united with one message: Release the hostages now.”

Later in the day, however, he also hosted a meeting with the leaders of Arab and Muslim countries, and pledged that “we’re going to end” the war in Gaza.

“Trump has not been able to achieve any major progress or gains in the region, particularly on the Israeli-Palestinian top front,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute think-tank in Washington. “In fact, things are worse than when he entered office.”

With an end to the nearly two-year-old conflict seeming more remote than ever, the apparent sidelining of Trump has added to skepticism over his........

© The Times of Israel