French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that France will recognize Palestine as a state, amid snowballing global anger over people starving in Gaza.

President Emmanuel Macron's announcement that France would become the first Western member of the United Nations Security Council to recognise a Palestinian state in September has caused diplomatic ructions from the Middle East through Europe to Washington.

The French president, expressing a moral obligation to address suffering in Gaza, made clear he had lost patience with the United States and Israel. The question is what effect he will have.