China urges full humanitarian access for Gaza

China has urged Israel to allow humanitarian aid and other supplies to reach the Gaza Strip in full. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made the request during a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Thursday.

The meeting was held on the sidelines of the seventh ministerial meeting of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia. According to the Chinese side, Wang stressed the need for immediate steps to save Gaza's roughly 2 million civilians from the humanitarian crisis.

He also called for a halt to the construction and expansion of settlements in the West Bank and for such measures to be reversed. Wang said the two-state solution remains the right path to resolving the Palestinian issue. He said both Israeli and Palestinian people have the right to live in peace and to establish their own independent states, and that dialogue and a political solution are needed for lasting peace in the Middle East.