“It is a tragedy for humankind and a disgrace for civilisation that today, in the 21st century, that this humanitarian disaster cannot be stopped,” Wang said, as he called for all international humanitarian aid to be made available to the strip.

Wang also said China supported full UN membership for Palestine, while urging a political settlement to the crisis with Israel under the “two-state solution”.

“We support Palestine’s full membership in the United Nations,” Wang said, calling on “individual Security Council members to refrain from placing obstacles in its way” – in what was a veiled swipe at the United States.

China’s ‘two sessions’ 2024: what foreign minister said on US, Taiwan and Ukraine

China advocates “the convening of a larger, more authoritative and more effective international peace conference” to implement such a solution, he added.

The Palestinian envoy to the UN said in January that they could seek full UN membership this year, after becoming a non-member observer state 12 years ago. Israel and the US, its main ally, were among nine countries that had voted against the status upgrade in 2012.

The US was also the only permanent Security Council member to have done so. This casts doubts on Palestinian attempts at becoming a full member as any vote on UN membership must be backed by the council before it is put to the General Assembly.

However, compared with other Chinese diplomats’ recent remarks urging Israel to stop its attacks on Gaza, Wang appeared to cautiously avoid direct criticism.

China hopes Israel and Palestine can “coexist peacefully”, Wang said, the only time he mentioned the Jewish nation by its full Chinese name.

He also called for the release of all “detained people”, in an apparent reference to the hostages taken by Palestinian militant group Hamas during their deadly cross-border raid on October 7 that triggered the military response from Israel.

Regarding the Ukraine war, Wang once again called for an international peace conference to resolve the matter, while avoiding mention of any single party in the conflict.

03:06

China’s top diplomat says Beijing supports Ukraine-Russia summit at ‘right time’

China’s top diplomat says Beijing supports Ukraine-Russia summit at ‘right time’

China’s stable relations with both Russia and Ukraine and historical success at brokering a Saudi-Iranian diplomatic rapprochement last year have raised Beijing’s profile as a potential new global peacemaker.

Chinese envoys last year criss-crossed the conflict zones in a burst of unprecedented shuttle diplomacy. Li Hui, China’s special envoy for Eurasia, toured Ukraine and Russia in May, while Zhai Jun, the envoy for the Middle East, visited the region after the Gaza war erupted, although he did not stop in Israel.

But a cautious approach and limited reach in both the Ukrainian and Gazan battlefields are putting Beijing’s real power as a rising mediator to the test.

Wang, as both foreign minister and director of the ruling Communist Party’s foreign affairs office, is the country’s most powerful diplomat in decades. However, while he has travelled to Russia, he has yet to visit Ukraine, Israel or Palestine.

In contrast, his US counterpart Antony Blinken has visited Ukraine and the Middle East multiple times in the past few months alone.

Wang met his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference last month. But on a separate occasion during the conference, Wang said the conditions were not yet right for peace talks and the concerns of both Russia and Ukraine should be taken into consideration.

On Thursday, asked when talks might take place to resolve the crisis that had lasted for more than two years, he said: “The end of any conflict is the negotiating table. The sooner you talk, the sooner peace will come.”