Palestinians search for victims at the site of an Israeli attack on a house during the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 19, 2023. Portal/Mohammed Salem acquire license rights
BEIJING, Oct 20 (Portal) – China’s special envoy for the Middle East blamed the cause of the Israel-Gaza crisis on the lack of guarantees for Palestinians’ rights as he met his Russian counterpart in Qatar, a mediator in the conflict .
On the first leg of his trip to the region, China’s Middle East envoy Zhai Jun landed in Qatar on Thursday, where he joined his Russian counterpart Mikhail Bogdanov in reaffirming Beijing’s agreement with Moscow in their efforts to de-escalate the Gaza crisis.
China and Russia have the same position on the Palestinian issue, Zhai was quoted as saying after meeting Bogdanov in Doha, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with President Xi Jinping in a rare meeting in Beijing.
“The main reason for the current situation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is that the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people are not guaranteed,” Zhai said, without referring to the Gaza Strip-based militant group Hamas.
On October 7, Hamas gunmen stormed from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, killing at least 1,400 people. In response, Israel responded with airstrikes and laid siege to the 2.3 million people of the Gaza Strip.
A week later, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi condemned “all acts that harm civilians” without naming Hamas, while declaring that “Israel’s actions have gone beyond the scope of self-defense.”
Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China, told Bloomberg Television on Thursday that the United States and China have different views on the Israel-Hamas war.
“We don’t have the same opinion on this particular position,” Burns said when asked if he saw tensions in the Middle East as an opportunity to improve Sino-American relations.
‘CAUSES’
The crisis has divided China and Russia into camps separate from the United States. President Joe Biden said he would seek additional funding estimated to be in the billions of dollars to help Israel fight Hamas.
Russia, which has ties to Iran, the militant Hamas group, major Arab powers as well as the Palestinians and Israel, has repeatedly said the United States and the West have ignored the need for an independent Palestinian state within 1967 borders.
A U.N. Security Council resolution drafted by Brazil calling for a humanitarian ceasefire failed on Wednesday as the United States vetoed it. A resolution drawn up by Russia calling for a humanitarian ceasefire also failed on Monday.
“The US’s biased attitude is a root cause of the long-standing Palestine issue and acts as a catalyst for the escalation of the conflict when it breaks out,” China’s nationalist tabloid Global Times wrote in an editorial.
In Qatar, Zhai said China is ready to maintain communication and coordination with Russia to calm the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The tiny Gulf state of Qatar has been a key stopover in recent days for foreign diplomats, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, seeking to mediate in the Israel-Gaza conflict, and has had direct channels of communication with Hamas, which has been a political party for more than a year Office in Doha has been operating for more than a decade.
Reporting by Liz Lee and Ryan Woo; Edited by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Stephen Coates and Lincoln Feast and Miral Fahmy
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