The Chinese Foreign Ministry declared the Communist Party regime “firmly” opposed and “deeply concerned” on Thursday following the death of Hamas “political” chief Ismail Haniyeh in what appears to be a targeted strike the day before in Iran.
China, under the leadership of genocidal dictator Xi Jinping, has endeavored to make itself a relevant actor in the Middle East in part through cooperation with Hamas. Chinese Communist Party representatives met with Haniyeh as recently as March, reportedly telling the leader of the terrorist organization that Beijing saw Hamas as “part of the Palestinian national fabric and China is keen on relations with it.” China has also attempted to broker several talks between Hamas and the rival entity “Fatah,” which controls the West Bank. Hamas is currently in control of Gaza, which it has used as a launching pad for terrorist massacres against the Israeli people.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, announced on Wednesday that Haniyeh died in Tehran in an unspecified operation, referring to the incident as an Israeli assassination. Neither the government of Israel nor any other entity has taken responsibility for what now appears to have been a targeted strike on Haniyeh’s lodgings. The government of leftist American President Joe Biden distanced itself from the strike, claiming it had no involvement or prior knowledge of the attack.
Haniyeh was in Tehran for the inauguration of new President Masoud Pezeshkian. “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei presided over his funeral on Thursday.
As “political” chief, Haniyeh lived far from the devastation Hamas wrought on Palestinians in Gaza, enjoying luxurious accommodations in Doha, Qatar, where he held meetings with the world’s top Hamas allies. Haniyeh was believed to be worth $4 billion when he died.
“We firmly oppose and condemn the act of assassination and are deeply concerned that the incident may plunge the region into greater turmoil,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Thursday in response to a question about Haniyeh. “Gaza needs a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire as soon as possible and there should be no more escalation of the conflict and confrontation.”
Lin added that China supported “Palestine’s internal reconciliation,” an apparent reference to its efforts to reconcile Hamas and Fatah, which have been at odds since Hamas terrorists attacked Fatah and seized control of Gaza in 2007.
“China remains committed to keeping the Middle East peaceful and stable, and opposes external interference,” Lin added, failing to clarify how China’s continued attempts to bolster Hamas are not “external interference.”
The Chinese state-run propaganda newspaper Global Times cited several regime-approved “experts” who lamented that Haniyeh’s death would “negatively impact the direction of the Israeli-Palestinian situation.”
“As a result, reconciliation efforts between Israel and Palestine as well as peace talks between Hamas and Israel are likely to face significant setbacks,” an academic identified as Sun Degang told the outlet.
Hamas has waged war against Israel for decades, explicitly declaring its genocidal intention to eliminate the state and its population. Israel formally declared war against Hamas, however, in the aftermath of the gruesome wave of massacres Hamas committed in the country on October 7, when the terrorists invaded Israel from Gaza and tortured and executed entire residential communities, including children as young as infants. Interviews with survivors and evidence-gathering operations found that, in addition to the slaughter, Hamas terrorists engaged in rampant acts of gang rape, torture, and desecration of corpses, some of which they filmed and uploaded online themselves.
China has refrained from any meaningful condemnation of Hamas’s actions, instead blaming Israel’s existence for the ongoing jihad against it. In his first remarks on the October 7 killings in November, dictator Xi accused Israel of “collective punishment” in its self-defense operations in Gaza and levied a series of demands to Israel, without similarly condemning Hamas.
“Stop all violence and attacks against civilians, release civilians held captive, and act to prevent loss of more lives and spare people from more miseries,” Xi said at the time. “The collective punishment of people in Gaza in the form of forced transfer or water, electricity and fuel deprivation must stop.”
The Chinese government has endeavored to normalize and detoxify Hamas through hosting talks with Fatah and leading “Arab dialogue” initiatives since October. A first round of talks in April appeared to yield no progress, but Chinese leaders announced in July that Hamas and Fatah – alongside the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist organization – signed a document branded the “Beijing declaration” committing to further cooperation against Israel in the future.
“Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national unity. We are committed to national unity and we call for it,” Hamas politburo member Mousa Abu Marzook said at the time. The agreement reportedly centered around creating an “interim national reconciliation government around the governance of post-war Gaza.”
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