The Egyptian and Chinese foreign ministers pleaded together in Cairo on Sunday for a ceasefire on the 100th day of the war in Gaza and for the creation of a “State of Palestine” with full rights as a member of the UN.
During a joint press conference at the start of an African tour by the Chinese Wang Yi, he said he was in favor, with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Choukri, of “an independent and sovereign State of Palestine within the borders of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital. In a joint statement, the two men also called for “an end to the violence and fighting”.
The two-state solution
The press release also calls for “an international summit for peace in order to find a just, complete and lasting solution to the Palestinian question with the end of the (Israeli) occupation and an independent State of Palestine, with territorial continuity” while Currently, the Palestinians live in fact under two rival and parallel governments.
The Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas holds parts of the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, while Hamas – at war with Israel since its October 7 attack on Israeli soil – controls the Gaza Strip. China maintains good relations with Israel but has supported the Palestinian cause for several decades and considers Palestine a state.
Beijing traditionally advocates for a two-state solution. On the 100th day of the war, the Hamas Ministry of Health recorded 23,968 Palestinians killed, mostly women and minors, as well as 60,582 wounded in the Gaza Strip. The October 7 attack left around 1,140 dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on the Israeli toll.