People gather in a rally to support Palestinians in New York City, the United States, on Oct. 7, 2024. On the first anniversary of Hamas' assault on Israel which falls on Oct. 7, thousands of protesters took to the streets in many places around the world to express solidarity with the Palestinians and demand an immediate ceasefire from Israel amid the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [Photo/Xinhua]
October 7 marks the first anniversary of the conflict in Gaza. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday that the harsh reality fully proves that military operations and violence are not the way out, and will only accumulate grievance and push peace and stability further out of reach.
"The Gaza conflict has been dragging on for a whole year, and has caused the loss of many innocent lives and unprecedented humanitarian disaster," spokesperson Mao Ning said at a daily news briefing, adding that the spillover of the conflict affects the region and tensions in the region have continued to escalate.
China is deeply concerned that the fighting is still going on and peace remains elusive, she said.
Mao added that not long ago, China proposed the three-step initiative regarding the conflict in Gaza, which identifies ceasefire and humanitarian aid as the pressing priority, "the Palestinians governing Palestine" as the fundamental principle of post-conflict reconstruction in Gaza and the two-State solution as the fundamental way forward.
The legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people need to be realized and the reasonable security concerns of Israel need to be paid attention to, said Mao.
The international community needs to, on the basis of promoting deescalation, hold a more broad-based, authoritative and effective international peace conference and formulate a timetable and roadmap for the implementation of the two-State solution, to eventually realize peaceful coexistence between the two states of Palestine and Israel as well as harmony between the Arab and Jewish peoples, she added.