Palestinian girls sit in the debris of the house of Rateb Hatab Shukairat, after it was demolished by Israeli bulldozers, in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabal Mukaber on January 29, 2023. Photo: AFP

While urging the international community to create conditions for the resumption of talks between Palestine and Israel, China said it will continue to work hard for a comprehensive, just and lasting settlement of the Palestinian question, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Sunday as violence continues unabated in the Palestine-Israel conflict.

Lately, tensions have escalated between Palestine and Israel with violence and conflicts increasing. Israeli troops killed 10 Palestinians on Thursday, including an elderly woman, one of the deadliest days in the occupied West Bank since Israeli raids intensified at the start of last year, Al Jazeera reported on Thursday.

On Friday, a Palestinian attacker shot dead seven people near a synagogue in occupied East Jerusalem before being fatally shot, media reported.

According to a statement published by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Sunday morning, China has been closely following the recent escalation of tensions between Palestine and Israel. We are deeply saddened by the civilian casualties caused by the Palestine-Israel conflicts. We condemn all terrorist attacks targeting civilians and oppose excessive use of force, the ministry said. 

The pressing priority is to do everything possible to deescalate the situation and call on all parties, Israel in particular, to show calm and restraint in order to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control, the foreign ministry stressed.

The statement noted that the Palestine-Israel conflict has been recurring fundamentally because the two-state solution has not been delivered and the Palestinian people have long been denied their legitimate aspiration of establishing an independent state. 

The international community needs to act with a stronger sense of urgency and create conditions for the resumption of talks between Palestine and Israel. China will continue to work hard for a comprehensive, just and lasting settlement of the Palestinian question, said the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Since the escalation of the Palestine-Israel conflict recently, world leaders have called for calm amid rising violence in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. US President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to discuss the horrific terror attack on Friday in Jerusalem, which claimed at least seven innocent Israeli lives, according to the White House on Friday.

The State Department announced Thursday that the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Egypt, Israel and the West Bank this weekend, as the US expressed alarm about escalating violence after Israel's single deadliest operation in the West Bank in two decades, AP reported.

Shi Yinhong, director of the Center for American Studies at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Sunday that over the years, the relationship between the US and Israel has been complicated. On the one hand, Israel is the most important strategic and military ally of the US in the Middle East, and the US is generally reluctant to seriously offend Israel on any issue.

On the other hand, Israel's national interest agenda is not the same as that of the US. In particular, Israel is focused on the movement of its enemies or threats in the Middle East, especially Palestine, he noted.

Blinken's visit to the region is superficially a "fire-fighting mission," Shi pointed out. 

However, some Chinese observers questioned whether the US senior politician is heading to the region to "put out the fire" or "stoke the fire."

They pointed out that Washington is no longer capable of leading the solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict, nor does it have a solid plan in place. Therefore, Blinken's visit to the region will have only limited effects.

China's stance on this matter, compared with that of the US and the West, is clearly more constructive. The spokesperson's line indicates that China looks at the whole history of the matter and discusses the subject without taking any sides. 

More importantly, China has emphasized that the issue must be addressed fundamentally, taking the opportunity to call on the international community to focus on the Palestine-Israel conflict again. The issue is already regarded as one of the world's most dangerous powder kegs. And as long as the conflict between Palestine and Israel has not been resolved entirely, it will detonate again in the future, and the Middle East will not truly usher in peace.

The escalation of the Palestine-Israel conflict demonstrates that China has always been a guardian of peace and a contributor to development in the Middle East. China stands ready to work with the international community to practice true multilateralism, push for a comprehensive, just, and lasting settlement of the question of Palestine, and achieve security, stability, development, and prosperity in the Middle East at an early date.