Speaking at the 10th International Academic and Expert Forum “Primakov Readings”, held in Moscow on June 26, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed fear at Israeli officials’ comments on Gaza that “there are no civilians there, they are all terrorists starting from age three.”
A video from an interview of a rescued hostage with the phrase “There are no civilians (in Gaza)” has been circulated on social media by Israelis, including the Israeli government which later removed the post.
Mr Lavrov, referring to Israeli officials’ statements while there are pressing global warnings to halt the indiscriminate attacks in the densely populated Gaza strip, said, “These are terrible words.”
He said he had a “detailed and frank” telephonic conversation with Israel’s Foreign Affairs Minister Israel Katz. He hoped that Tel Aviv would consider the calls of the majority of the world to stop the reckless attacks in which the “daily death rate is higher than any other major 21st-century conflict,” according to Oxfam International.
He said, “I hope that they will heed the voice of the overwhelming majority of the world’s countries.”
Outlining “the tragedy” that he has observed in Palestinian territory, especially the Gaza Strip, he said, “I was very perturbed when Israel and (its leaders) began to argue that these methods are quite justified.”
Comparing the lives lost to the war in Donbass, where over ten years the number of civilian deaths was 33% lesser, Mr Lavrov quoted that 35,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed during the six-month operation in Gaza with more than twice wounded.
Calling out the West’s double standards
Mr Lavrov did not fail to draw attention to the hypocrisy of the West, which has throughout been supporting Tel Aviv unwaveringly, regarding the Ukrainian conflict and Israel’s attack in Gaza. He said, “The double standards that are manifesting themselves are very telling.” He also highlighted that “the whole pathos of our Western colleagues is aimed at inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia: stop Russia, make it pull back to the 1991 borders, and the war will immediately stop.” He rebuked the idea saying “Is this what serious grown-up people are saying? It’s ridiculous.”
Moscow’s support for Israel and Palestinian National Authority
Mr Lavrov iterated his strong condemnation of Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel, which reportedly killed 1,139 people. He pointed out that Moscow has always been advocating “the need for ensuring Israel’s security in any circumstances.”
At the same time, he outlined the fact that “for many decades, the right of the Palestinians to their own state, proclaimed by the UN General Assembly, was blocked and ignored.” He also noted that the territory allocated for the Palestinian state was “shrinking like a shagreen skin.” He raised concerns about how the presently “tiny plots of land” would form something called a state.
He pressed the issue of creating a Palestinian state to remain on the international community’s agenda, and took into account the “situation on the ground and the territories that the Palestinian National Authority now controls in reality.”
Mr Lavrov recalled that Russia has been emphasising Palestinian unity and gathering all Palestinian factions in Moscow in efforts to unify them to negotiate with Israel that should be “direct and should be resumed.” He referred to a recent meeting in which the Palestinian factions adopted a joint statement of unification, for the first time, based on the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Charter.
