Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced, on 20–21 October 2026, that Pacific Islands Forum secretary-general Baron Waqa had told him Israel had been accepted as a Forum Partner, after the leaders’ meeting in Palau. It is not membership. The PIF has Pacific member states; partners sit outside. Headlines that say “Israel joins the Forum” skip the tiers.

1News: as a “sectoral” partner, second tier, Israel works at ministerial level. “Strategic” partners — the US, China, the EU — sit with the leaders. The secretariat had issued no announcement. Leaders are understood to have agreed last month, in Palau, but nothing was released until countries were told which stream they were in. The tiers, 1News says, are reviewed in a year. A review is not a promotion.

RNZ: the secretariat has still not issued an official statement on the status. An Israeli foreign-ministry announcement is not a PIF communiqué. The request was lodged in June, in Fiji, on Sa’ar’s visit. The three dates — June, Palau last month, October — are not the same sitting.

The cooperation named: water, desalination, agriculture, climate, innovation, sustainable development. That is the ministry’s list, not a signed plan. A joint action plan, if it comes, is future. Attendance at next year’s leaders’ summit in New Zealand is not settled for sectoral partners.

Palau’s president, Surangel Whipps Jr., said at the meeting that partners are welcome, but it is not for them to set the region’s direction. Israel’s foreign ministry notes Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Nauru have opened embassies in Jerusalem. Embassies do not make Israel a PIF member.

The two tiers replaced the old “dialogue partners”, some 21 of them, 1News writes, because some contributed little. 1News does not put Israel on the strategic stream. Nor does RNZ say the secretariat has confirmed it in public.

Image: Ngerulmud, Palau, 8 June 2026, Zykasaa, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The capital in June, not the October announcement.

Sources consulted: Israel approved as second-tier partner in Pacific Islands Forum — 1News; Israel joins Pacific Islands Forum as partner — RNZ.