Beijing hosts delegation, urges immediate cease-fire in Gaza(2)

Major push for peace

In the meeting with Arab and Islamic officials, the Chinese Foreign Minister said the pressing task now is to fully implement relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly and achieve an immediate cease-fire and cessation of hostilities. A cease-fire should not be a diplomatic rhetoric. It is a matter of life and death for the people in Gaza.

A cease-fire should be achieved as a top priority. This is the pressing need of the people in Gaza, the wish of the overwhelming majority of countries, and the unanimous voice of all peace-loving people around the world, Wang said.

"A cease-fire and humanitarian pauses are two different things. While Arab and Islamic countries and China are demanding a cease-fire, the U.S.-led West is asking for humanitarian pauses," Niu Xinchun, a research fellow at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times on Monday. "There's still a huge gap between humanitarian pauses and a ceasefire."

The latest resolution adopted by the UN Security Council called for "urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip", with three abstentions - Russia, the U.S. and the UK. Some experts saw the resolution as being a product of compromise.

Countries like Jordan and Egypt play an important role on the Palestinian question. For example, as one of the surrounding countries to the Gaza Strip, Egypt could play a bigger role in terms of humanitarian aid, Liu Zhongmin, a professor at the Middle East Studies Institute of Shanghai International Studies University, told the Global Times on Monday.

"Also, countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt could play an important role in the future resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which the discussion between those countries and China could focus on some practical issues," Liu said.

The fundamental reason for the cycle of conflict between Palestine and Israel is that the Palestinian people's right to statehood and survival and their right of return to their homes have been ignored for a long time, Wang said at the meeting.

The way out is to implement the two-state solution and establish an independent Palestinian state. China calls for an early convening of an international peace conference with greater scale, scope and effectiveness, and a timetable and roadmap for this purpose, Wang said.

Divisions exist

In a recent joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries called for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza, rejecting Israel's justification of its actions against Palestinians as "self-defense." The development was seen as a historic moment of the Arab-Islamic world moving toward unity while Israel intensifies its attacks on the Gaza Strip.

However, the absence of Turkey and Iran from the delegation showed that divisions still exist among Arab and Islamic countries, especially when Turkey's stance on the Palestinian question appeared to be much stronger than Saudi Arabia's, experts noted. "They did not come up with a consensus on imposing countermeasures on Israel nor measures against the U.S., showing that Arab-Islamic unity is still in question," Liu said.

An Israeli official said on Monday that progress has been made in the Qatar-mediated talks aimed at freeing some of the 240 hostages held by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

According to Israel's state-owned Kan TV news, the proposed deal includes the release of about 50 women and children, who would be released in several stages. In exchange, Palestinian women and minors currently held in Israeli prisons would be released, in addition to a few-day pause in the relentless Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip.

Six weeks into the war, Israel is facing intense international pressure to justify its operations, according to the media report.

Israel officials have also warned that a "window of legitimacy" for the war to rout Hamas may be closing, media reported.

"It's hard to say if the conflict will become a long-term war, but at least it won't stop for now," Niu said, noting that as Israel's own goals are far from being met.