Russia condemns missile strikes from the Gaza Strip on residential areas of Israel and attacks on civilian facilities on Palestinian territory, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference on Monday.
"We condemn the strikes that are also carried out from the Gaza Strip on residential neighborhoods, and, of course, strikes on civilian objects on Palestinian territory are absolutely unacceptable. I believe that enough calls have already been made for this situation to stop immediately and for negotiations to begin," Lavrov said.
Resolving the conflict
According to the minister, the international community has sent all the right signals to the parties to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, now the settlement depends on their ability to negotiate.
"We still proceed from the fact that there is the international community, which should not be indifferent to what is happening. There is a quartet of international mediators who are explicitly obligated to help resolve the Palestinian question, the UNSC met yesterday. Unfortunately, several days were lost because the US said it was not prepared to discuss the situation as soon as it broke out. Nevertheless, the Security Council discussed the problem, opinions were voiced and all the signals were sent. Now everything depends on the sides' ability to reach an agreement and on their good will," Lavrov said.
He stressed that Russia calls on the sides to stop the violence and will do everything to help them "find agreements both to calm down the current very dangerous hot phase of the conflict and to start direct negotiations as soon as possible." "We condemn the strikes that are also carried out from the Gaza Strip against residential neighborhoods, and of course the strikes against civilian objects in Palestinian territory are totally unacceptable. I think there have been enough calls for this situation to stop immediately and for negotiations to begin," the minister added.
Lavrov noted that Moscow appreciated Egypt's mediation efforts in resolving the Middle East conflict. "That country's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry kept us informed of his conversations with the parties, it seemed to us at some stage that he was close to the result. But for some reason, the desire to continue punishing someone got the upper hand," said the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
He also commented on Israeli Ambassador in Moscow Alexander Ben Zvi who recently announced his readiness for direct negotiations without preconditions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. "I want to publicly remind Mr. Ambassador that exactly this, direct negotiations without preconditions, was agreed to three or four years ago, with our assistance. Then it was not implemented through no fault of our own," Lavrov summarized.
On May 10, radical Palestinian groups in Gaza and the Israeli army started to exchange attacks. The rocket attacks followed riots at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem that began because of an Israeli court decision to seize houses in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood from Arab families living there. According to the latest figures, at least 10 people were killed on the Israeli side and hundreds were injured. The Palestinian side reports more than 220 deaths and nearly 6,000 injuries during the current escalation of the conflict with Israel.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from TASS