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China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has told a top Israeli official that Israel must stop and reverse its “forced establishment” of settlements in the West Bank, according to China’s foreign ministry.

Getting into it: Wang delivered the message to Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Thursday on the sidelines of a regional summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, where Wang is representing Chinese President Xi Jinping. In a statement Friday, China’s foreign ministry said Wang told Herzog that China sees the Palestinian question as “the greatest historical injustice of this century,” backs a two-state solution, and believes the top priority is to fully open access to Gaza to stop the spread of a “humanitarian catastrophe.” Wang said China is willing to work with other countries to push all sides back to talks and toward a political settlement.

Herzog described the meeting differently on X, saying it “focused on the relations between our countries and the situation in the Middle East,” and his office declined to comment on whether the West Bank or Palestinians came up.

Wang later met with Palestinian Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, telling her “the Palestinian issue should not be marginalized.”

This all comes as Beijing has spent years backing the Palestinian cause while also keeping close ties with Iran, buying most of its oil, and has been working to position itself as a peace broker in the region, brokering a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2023 and joining Pakistan earlier this year in proposing a ceasefire in the US-Israel war on Iran. Beijing also condemned the US and Israeli strikes on Iran in March.