After decades of being prisoner in their own land, having been evicted from their homes and suffering oppression and killings at the hands of Israel, Palestine has been officially recognized as a state by the United Nations.

The United Nations voted overwhelmingly to recognise a Palestinian state, but it still faces enormous limitations: They don't control their borders, airspace or trade, they have separate and competing governments in Gaza and the West Bank, and they have no unified army or police.

More than two-thirds of the world body's 193 member states approved the resolution upgrading the Palestinians' status from an observer to a nonmember observer state on Thursday. It passed 138-9, with 41 abstentions.

The vote was a victory decades in the making for the Palestinians after years of occupation and war. It was a sharp rebuke for Israel and the United States.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has never wavered from his position: establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem - the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.

But real independence is far from being secured. Palestine must negotiate a peace deal with the Israelis, but the situation with Hamas will not allow that to happen.

The Hamas militant group has seen its popularity rise after it responded with a barrage of rocket fire to an Israeli offensive earlier this month on targets linked to the militants.

But Abbas has seen his position strengthened with this vote. "The General Assembly is being asked today to issue the birth certificate of Palestine," the Palestinian leader declared.

But the United States and Israel immediately criticized the vote. We cannot"  UN Ambassador Susan Rice said: "Today's grand pronouncements will soon fade and the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded."

Calling the vote "meaningless," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Abbas of spreading "mendacious propaganda" against Israel in a speech he rejected as "defamatory and venomous."

"The resolution in the UN today won't change anything on the ground," Netanyahu said. "It won't advance the establishment of a Palestinian state, but rather, put it further off."

With most UN members sympathetic to the Palestinians, there had been no doubt the resolution would be approved. A state of Palestine has already been recognized by 132 countries, and the Palestinians have 80 embassies and 40 representative offices around the world, according to the Palestinian Foreign Ministry.

Still, the Palestinians lobbied hard for Western support, winning over key European countries including France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and Ireland, as well as Japan and New Zealand. Germany and Britain were among the many Western nations that abstained. Malta has been a long-time supporter of Palestinian statehood.

Joining the United States and Israel in voting "no" were Canada, the Czech Republic, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Panama.

Palestine can now gain access to UN agencies and international bodies, most significantly the International Criminal Court, which could become a springboard for going after Israel for alleged war crimes or its ongoing settlement building on war-won land.

However, in the run-up to the UN vote, Abbas signaled that he wants recognition to give him leverage in future talks with Israel, and not as a tool for confronting or delegitimizing Israel, as Israeli leaders have claimed.