China plans to hold talks with Israel as well as Russia, EU and UN over conflict in Gaza

Beijing says it welcomes ‘Palestinian and Israeli representatives coming to China for direct negotiations’

Foreign ministry accuses US of blocking Security Council from reaching consensus, while also claiming China will not be deterred from promoting peace

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Debris in Gaza City's Rimal area on May 20 after it was bombed by an Israeli air strike. Israel and the Palestinians are mired in their worst conflict in years as Israel pounds the Gaza Strip with air strikes and artillery, while Hamas militants fire rockets into Israel. Photo: AFP

Published: 10:00pm, 20 May 2021Updated: 2:24am, 21 May 2021

China said it planned to hold talks with Israel and other powers to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after it had expressed “firm support” for Palestine’s statehood in a telephone call with Palestinian officials this week.

Beijing has sought to play a more active part in the crisis and has used its role as the rotating chair of the United Nations Security Council this month to cement its position as an arbiter in the Middle East peace process.

In separate phone calls with Palestinian and Egyptian officials over the past two days, China’s special envoy on the Middle East, Zhai Jun, has called for peace talks between Palestine and Israel to resume and reiterated China’s “firm support for the just cause of the Palestinian people in resuming their national sovereign rights”, according to a statement by the foreign ministry on Thursday.

Also on Thursday, the ministry’s spokesman Zhao Lijian said Zhai would hold more phone calls with counterparts from Israel, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

He said China planned to hold a seminar about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and “welcomes Palestinian and Israeli representatives coming to China for direct negotiations”, without giving further details.

Zhao again accused the US of blocking the Security Council from reaching consensus on the issue. “The Chinese side’s efforts in promoting peace will not stop because of this. The Chinese side will actively participate in the process of mediation in its own ways,” he said.

Beijing had previously accused Washington of “ignoring the suffering” of the Palestinian people while leading an international attack against China over its treatment of the Uygur Muslims.