No, I'm only stating their formal argument to the best of my ability to explain it and ignoring speculation. Now, if I WERE to speculate, I'd say what you're saying is probably closer to the truth. For Russia at least I'm almost 100% certain that's the reason. China is very different. I'd argue that China's stance has nothing to do with Russia, USA or Taiwan. There's this weird myopia when it comes to China and their interests. China's interests span far greater than those three little pieces of land.

No, for China I'd argue we'd first need to ask who is their audience for this. That answer is the other nations in the middle east. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, etc... China has been trying to formulate a narrative that they are friends to Muslims regardless of the accusations of what they are doing in XinJiang. So, it's almost certain China's stance comes from conversations with those nations. So technically they are telling the truth in the sense that their saying what others are telling them. Reality is it's just to win favor over the oil producing nations so they have stable supplies of energy.

*Edit. Essentially what I think China is saying to the middle eastern world is you have a veto with me, the same way India has with Russia.

Israel's also an important weapons manufacturer and importer.

If the deal Israel has with the US explodes, China would be more than happy to fill that void. Sell them some more weapons, import some fancy missile tech, etc. Their current stance belies years of cooperation, including weapons deals. Something the US was pressuring them on. (I say current stance, but they just blocked a cease fire, so it may be that they're already making the pivot).

Not as if they actually give a shit about human rights of Gazans, despite the propaganda.

In international politics morality always comes second to real politik. There are no good guys.

treating the hostages as merely bargaining chips ignores that they are innocent civilians caught in this idiotic conflict through no fault of their own.

The way I see it if we look at Hamas side - That's the only bargaining chips that Hamas has. They've got nothing else, nil. Hamas is very dependent on the hostages and they know they would receive greater retaliation from the Israeli after the Oct 7 attack if they didn't have any hostages. During the attack, the strategy is basically two prongs - get rid of the soldiers, and get as many hostages alive so we can still survive (yes, some hostages did get killed during the real due to some reasons such as miscommunication during the execution of their operations by separate fringe parties). For that very reason, they try to keep the hostages alive because the moment they lost their hostages without any meaningful peace deal, they are basically done.

I can understand it but treating the hostages as merely bargaining chips ignores that they are innocent civilians caught in this idiotic conflict through no fault of their own. Hamas has no right to use the hostages as a tool to protect themselves.

They have the right to use the hostages to protect Gazans. Don't blame the player, blame the game.

Agreed, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, including Children, have been taken hostage and tortured by Israels Military Courts

Indeed. israel should release the 3000 hostages of which more than 140 children which they are torturing in their concentration camps.

You're correct, it just outlines the importance of one