Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has urged Israel to “comply immediately” with international law and declared the situation in Gaza is “beyond the world’s worst fears”.

Amid the worsening crisis in the Middle East, Albanese released a lengthy statement on Friday lamenting the “human catastrophe”.

“The position of the Australian government is clear: Every innocent life matters. Every Israeli. Every Palestinian,” he said.

“This conflict has stolen far too many innocent lives. Tens of thousands of civilians are dead, children are starving. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe.

“Israel’s denial of aid and the killing of civilians, including children, seeking access to water and food cannot be defended or ignored.”

Albanese also said that Australia condemned Hamas’s “brutality and terror” and called for the “immediate release of all remaining hostages”.

His statement follows a French move to recognise Palestine as a state, amid snowballing global anger over people starving in Gaza.

French President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on X that he will formalise the decision at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

The move makes France the the biggest Western power among than 140 countries to recognise a Palestinian state. It is mostly symbolic but applies further diplomatic pressure on Israel as the war and humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip rages.

“The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civilian population is saved,” Macron said.

Israel was swift to denounce the French move.

”We strongly condemn President Macron’s decision,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday (local time).

”Such a move rewards terror and risks creating another Iranian proxy, just as Gaza became. A Palestinian state in these conditions would be a launch pad to annihilate Israel — not to live in peace beside it.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US “strongly rejects [Macron’s] plan to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN general assembly.”

“This reckless decision only serves Hamas propaganda and sets back peace. It is a slap in the face to the victims of October 7th,” he wrote on X.

The Palestinian Authority, however, welcomed it. A letter announcing the move was presented to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Jerusalem, on Thursday.

”We express our thanks and appreciation” to Macron, Hussein Al Sheikh, the PLO’s vice president under Abbas, posted.

”This position reflects France’s commitment to international law and its support for the Palestinian people’s rights to self-determination.”

Macron offered support for Israel after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and frequently speaks out against antisemitism. But he has grown increasingly frustrated about Israel’s war in Gaza, especially in recent months.

“Given its historic commitment to a just and sustainable peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognise the state of Palestine,” Macron posted.

“Peace is possible.”

France has Europe’s largest Jewish population and the largest Muslim population in western Europe, and fighting in the Middle East often spills over into protests or other tensions at home.

France’s foreign minister will co-host a conference at the UN next week about a two-state solution.

Last month, Macron expressed his “determination to recognise the state of Palestine”. He has pushed for a broader movement toward a two-state solution, in parallel with recognition of Israel and its right to defend itself.

Thursday’s announcement came soon after the US cut short Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar, saying Hamas wasn’t showing good faith.

Momentum has built against Israel in recent days.

Earlier this week, France and more than two dozen countries – including Australia – condemned Israel’s restrictions on aid shipments into the territory and the killings of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach food.

Macron was to join the leaders of Britain and Germany for emergency talks Friday on Gaza, how to get food to the hungry and how to stop fighting.

“We are clear that statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people. A ceasefire will put us on a path to the recognition of a Palestinian state and a two-state solution which guarantees peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in announcing the call.

“The suffering and starvation unfolding in Gaza is unspeakable and indefensible.”

The Palestinians seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank, annexed east Jerusalem and Gaza, territories Israel occupied in the 1967 Mideast war.

In the West Bank, Israel has built scores of settlements, some resembling sprawling suburbs, that are home to more than 500,000 Jewish settlers with Israeli citizenship.

-with AAP