SHANGHAI, November 28. /TASS/. International structures, including BRICS, can play an important role in putting pressure on the US on the issue of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Jin Liangxiang, a senior fellow at the Center for West Asian and African Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS), has told TASS.

"I think that BRICS will be able to play a big role in addressing the current Palestinian-Israeli issue," Jin said, pointing out that the humanitarian crisis caused by the war was the main problem.

"At present, only the US can put pressure on Israel, and only the international community can put pressure on the US," he believes.

In his opinion, all international organizations and mechanisms can play a role in exerting pressure on the US. Israel and Hamas, he recalled, have agreed on a four-day ceasefire, which can be extended.

"Such a ceasefire agreement was made possible largely by a number of important multilateral events, multilateral mechanisms and multilateral organizations that called for a ceasefire in order to ease the humanitarian crisis," the expert pointed out.

The US, he said, while pursuing a policy of supporting Israel, has to turn an attentive ear to the international community.

"I think that the BRICS countries are a mechanism that does not depend on the US. It is not like the G7. In this issue, the Western countries are tied to the US and obey the US. I think the voice of the BRICS countries is particularly important in this issue," he said, adding that their opinion could be considered independent from a diplomatic point of view and not subject to US pressure.

On November 21, the BRICS leaders held an extraordinary summit on the situation in the Middle East by video link and adopted a joint declaration. In the document, the leaders condemned acts of violence against Palestinian and Israeli civilians, called for independent probes and for talks with the aim to establish a sovereign state of Palestine.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 when militants from the radical Palestinian group Hamas staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip and took more than 200 hostages, including children, women and old people. Hamas described its operation as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel has declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and carried out air strikes on the Palestinian enclave, as well as some areas of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also underway in the West Bank.