Belgium works to recognize Palestine state

Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said he first would push for a new EU initiative to bring Israel and the Palestinian authorities back to the negotiating table to reinvigorate the peace process. Belgian legislators are completing work on a text and it was still unclear when the resolution would be tabled, said an official from a leading coalition party, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process was continuing. On Tuesday, France's lower house already voted to urge the government to recognize a Palestinian state. On Oct. 30, Sweden became the first western European nation to recognize Palestinian statehood, according to Arab News. Meanwhile, an Israeli security guard shot a Palestinian teenager who stabbed two people in a supermarket near a settlement in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday. The incident occurred in the Rami Levi supermarket near Maale Adumim, a large settlement east of Jerusalem. Police said the two people stabbed by the attacker, whom they identified as a 16-year-old Palestinian, were taken to hospital with moderate injuries. The condition of the assailant was not immediately clear.