Live updates: Israel-Hamas war rages as Palestinian death toll in Gaza rises

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned Friday that “Palestine is now in a critical situation,” and the ongoing conflict “has caused heavy civilian casualties.”

In a joint press conference with the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Friday, China’s top diplomat reiterated that Beijing is on the side of “fairness and justice” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Warning that the humanitarian situation for Palestinians “is rapidly deteriorating,” Wang said that China “condemns all acts that harm civilians and opposes any violation of international law.”

He also listed four priorities that China deems “pressing given the severity of the current situation.”

First, as per Wang, is the need to “stop the fighting as soon as possible” to avoid further deterioration of the situation. 

Second is to adhere to international humanitarian law and prevent a severe disaster by opening “a humanitarian rescue and assistance passage as quickly as possible,” Wang said.

The third priority, according to the diplomat, is for the “relevant countries” to “exercise restraint, take an objective and just position, work for de-escalation of the conflict.”

The fourth priority listed by Wang suggested “the UN should play its due role” and build international consensus and “take real measures” to achieve the first three goals.

Wang said that “China is communicating with the relevant parties” and added that Beijing “will provide emergency humanitarian assistance to Gaza Strip and the Palestinian National Authority through the UN.”

He also said that “the injustice to Palestine has dragged on for over half a century,” and called to end it with “the two-state solution and an independent State of Palestine,” saying “This is how Palestine and Israel could coexist in peace.”

What is the two-state solution? The two-state solution – an Israeli state next to a Palestinian state, existing side by side in peace – has been the goal of the international community for decades, dating back to the 1947 UN Partition Plan, and many nations say that it is the only way out of the conflict.

It would recognize a 1967 demarcation line known as the Green Line to partition Palestinian and Israeli land, subject to land swaps based on negotiations, and it would divide Jerusalem between the two states.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never been a full-throated supporter of a two-state solution, weaving in and out of different definitions of what that would mean. But in recent years he’s settled on the idea that he’d be open to a Palestinian state – as long as it has no military or security power, an arrangement that would have no parallel among modern sovereign states.