China doubles down on calls for Palestinian UN membership

China's foreign minister reiterated calls for Palestine to be given full United Nations membership in forthright comments to reporters on Thursday (March 7). 

"We support Palestine becoming a full member of the United Nations and call on individual members of the Security Council not to set obstacles for this anymore," Wang Yi said.

"The current Palestinian-Israeli conflict has caused over 100,000 civilian casualties, and countless innocent people may remain buried under the rubble," Yi told reporters. "There is no distinction between noble and humble lives, and life should not be labeled by race or religion."

He added: "The failure to end the humanitarian disaster today in the 21st century is a tragedy for humanity and a disgrace for civilization. Nothing justifies the protraction conflict or the killing of the civilian population."

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Wang declared: "The international community must act promptly to promote an immediate ceasefire as its overriding priority and ensure humanitarian assistance as its pressing moral obligation. People in Gaza have the right to live in this world. Women and children deserve care from their families. All detainees should be released and all actions that harm civilians should be stopped."

He continued: "The calamity in Gaza is another wake-up call for the world that the long occupation of the Palestinian territories is a fact that should not be ignored anymore, and that the long cherished aspiration of the Palestinians for an independent state should not be evaded anymore. More importantly, the historical injustice to the Palestinians must not be allowed to continue uncorrected from generation to generation. 

"Restoring justice to the Palestinian people and fully implementing a two-state solution is the only way to break the vicious cycle of Palestinian-Israeli conflicts, to eliminate the breeding ground of extremist ideologies, and to realize enduring peace in the Middle East," Yi concluded.

Ceasefire talks in between Israel and Hamas are reportedly ongoing, as both parties seek out a resolution before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri told reporters that progress in the talks had been "thwarted" with Israel refusing to end its ground and air campaign in Gaza.

The reports come as Hamas's delegation departed the talks taking place in Cairo on Wednesday (March 6), but group reiterated that the talks were ongoing despite their delegation's departure.

Mediators are seeking a humanitarian ceasefire to come into effect before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, with Gaza's health ministry warning that famine fueled deaths now threaten to add to the enclave's death toll which has already reached 30,800. 72,298 have been wounded since the start of the conflict with over 500,000 now facing the risk of "catastrophic hunger," according to the UN.

Reporters likely shot at by Israel

An Israeli tank crew killed a Reuters reporter in Lebanon in October by firing two shells at a clearly identified group of journalists and then "likely" opened fire on them with a heavy machine gun in an attack that lasted 1 minute and 45 seconds, according to a report into the incident published on Thursday.

The report by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) - which was contracted by Reuters to analyse evidence from the October 13 attack that killed visuals journalist Issam Abdallah - found that a tank 1.34 km away in Israel fired two 120 mm rounds at the reporters.

The first shell killed Abdallah, 37, and severely wounded Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer Christina Assi, 28.

A Reuters investigation in December covered TNO's preliminary finding that a tank in Israel had fired at the journalists. In its final report on Thursday, the institute revealed that audio picked up by an Al Jazeera video camera at the scene showed the reporters also came under fire from 0.50 calibre rounds of the type used by the Browning machine guns that can be mounted on Israel's Merkava tanks.

"It is considered a likely scenario that a Merkava tank, after firing two tank rounds, also used its machine gun against the location of the journalists," TNO's report said. "The latter cannot be concluded with certainty as the direction and exact distance of (the machine gun) fire could not be established."

Israel accuses South Africa of 'exploitation'

Israel on Thursday accused South Africa of exploiting the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to help the Islamist militant group Hamas by again petitioning the World Court to take measures against Israel.

"South Africa continues to act as the legal arm of Hamas in an attempt to undermine Israel's inherent right to defend itself and its citizens, and to release all of the hostages," Israel's foreign ministry said.

"The repeated requests for provisional measures made by South Africa in order to assist Hamas are yet another cynical exploitation of the International Court of Justice in the Hague, which has already twice rejected the baseless attempts to deny Israel its right and obligation of self-defense," it said.

Officials in South Africa did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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