Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has told Israel to stop its "forced establishment" of settlements in the West Bank and reverse its actions, his office said - a phrase that sounds like it was drafted by a committee of lawyers who really wanted to say "building" but felt that was too generous.

The "Palestinian question" is "the greatest historical injustice of this century," Wang told Israeli President Isaac Herzog in a face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of a conference in Azerbaijan on Thursday. Nothing says "casual conference chat" like opening with a sweeping historical indictment, but Wang has never been one for small talk.

Beijing has been a longstanding supporter of the Palestinian cause and has maintained that a "two-state solution" is the "correct direction" - a phrase that has now been used so many times by so many governments that it has achieved the rare status of being both universally agreed upon and almost entirely unimplemented.

It has also been positioning itself as a mediator for conflicts in the Middle East, because why let a perfectly good diplomatic vacuum go to waste? In 2023, Beijing brokered a deal to restore diplomatic ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia after years of hostility - a genuine win that it has been dining out on ever since. Earlier this year, it was part of efforts, along with Pakistan, to propose a ceasefire in the US-Israel war against Iran.

Beijing's efforts to tackle the war in Gaza have focused on Palestinian unity. In 2024, Beijing got rival Palestinian factions to agree to form an interim "national reconciliation government" for the occupied West Bank and Gaza after the war with Israel, although it was never implemented - a detail that sounds like the diplomatic equivalent of getting your friends to agree on a restaurant and then nobody ever going.

Now, Wang says the "immediate priority" is to fully open access to Gaza and stop the continued spread of a "humanitarian catastrophe." China is willing to work with the international community to get the parties to return to dialogue and "seek a political solution to the conflict," Wang said - which is, at this point, the diplomatic version of saying "we should really catch up sometime."

In a post on X, Herzog said he was "pleased" to meet Wang and their talk "focused on the relations between our countries and the situation in the Middle East." "I emphasised Israel's desire for peace in the region, alongside the strategic threats to our security, first and foremost from Iran and its terror proxies," he wrote - a statement that manages to be both conciliatory and a warning label at the same time.

China maintains close ties with Iran and is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, which had previously come under US sanctions because of Tehran's nuclear programme - a fact that adds a certain spice to China's mediator role, like a referee who also happens to be the star player's landlord.

One year into the ceasefire, people in Gaza continue to live under the regular threat of Israeli strikes, displacement and food security challenges. Although large-scale bombardment has stopped, Israel has continued strikes in Gaza almost every day. More than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes there in the year since the ceasefire started in October 2025.

The US-brokered ceasefire was the first phase of a deal to end the war in Gaza, which had been triggered by a deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. But progress into the deal's next phase has been stalled, with both Israel and Hamas accusing each other of violating the terms of their agreement - which is, historically, the most reliable sign that a deal is going swimmingly.