The Temporary Coordinating Committee for Assistance to Palestinians has expressed its intention to intensify efforts to strengthen Palestinian economic potential, which should also be facilitated by Israel. This is said in a statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry following a July 6 videoconference of the committee at the senior officials level, which was attended by representatives from Israel, Palestine, Russia, the US, a number of Arab and European states.
"The high attention of international donors to the situation in the Palestinian territories, primarily in the Gaza Strip, whose infrastructure was significantly destroyed by the armed escalation in May 2021, was confirmed. The sides also expressed their willingness to intensify collective efforts to improve Palestine's economic potential, to which Israel should contribute in every possible way," the statement said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry pointed out that the participants in the discussion agreed that these steps should be subordinated to the task of "opening political horizons for a Middle East settlement." "In this context, the activities of the Middle East "quartet" of international mediators (Russia, the US, the UN and the EU) as a unique mechanism to accompany the peace process were positively assessed. Committee members called on Israelis and Palestinians to abandon unilateral steps that undermine the prospect of a two-state settlement," the ministry added.
Smolenskaya Square also noted that the Russian side pointed to the key contribution of the UN and Egyptian leadership to achieving and maintaining an armistice in the conflict zone with Moscow's energetic assistance, and emphasized the importance of an early restart of direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations under the aegis of the Quartet on an international legal basis approved by the UN.
On May 21, a cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip, which exchanged rocket attacks for 11 days, came into effect.
The conflict followed riots at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem that began because of an Israeli court decision to evict Arabs from homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Radicals fired more than 4 thousand rockets into the territory of the Jewish state; in response, the Israeli air force bombed hundreds of targets in the enclave. Thirteen people were killed on the Israeli side and 256 people, including children and women, were killed in Gaza.
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Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from TASS