The Chinese government's special envoy to the Middle East, Zhai Jun, has urged the UN to convene an influential and large-scale peace conference as soon as possible to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
"The United Nations should promote the early convening of a more authoritative, more influential and larger international peace conference [than exists at present]," Zhai Jun said as quoted by the official website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
According to Zhai, the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has once again proved that the Palestinian issue cannot be ignored or neglected. He stressed that the way out of the vicious circle of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is to return to the "two states for two peoples" plan and establish an independent Palestinian state.
On 21 October, Zhai took part in the Cairo peace summit initiated by Egypt. The conference took place in the Egyptian capital with the participation of more than 30 states and a series of international organizations.
In early October, Hamas launched a large-scale rocket attack from Gaza into Israel and breached the border. In response, Tel Aviv launched retaliatory strikes and ordered a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to more than two million people, cutting off supplies of water, food and fuel.
The blockade was later eased to allow trucks carrying humanitarian aid into Gaza. Thousands of deaths and injuries have been reported on both sides as a result of the escalation.