Skip to main content

Russia Calls For Global Mission To Assess Gaza's Humanitarian Situation

Russia on Sunday called for an international monitoring mission to go to Gaza to assess the humanitarian situation, and said it was unacceptable for Israel to use Hamas' Oct. 7 attack as justification for punishing the Palestinian people.

Israel invaded Gaza in retaliation for Hamas attack that Israel says killed 1,200 people. Israel's assault on Gaza has killed at least 17,000 people, Gaza health authorities say.

The United States on Friday vetoed a proposed U.N. Security Council demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the war between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas.

"We strongly condemned the terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Al Jazeera in an interview aired on Sunday at the Doha Forum conference.

"At the same time, we do not believe it is acceptable to use this event for the collective punishment of the millions of Palestinian people with indiscriminate shelling."

Mr Lavrov said that for there to be "humanitarian pauses" in Gaza "some kind of monitoring on the ground" was needed.

"We addressed the [UN] Secretary General [Antonio Guterres] suggesting that he use his authority to consider some kind of monitoring - but so far to no avail," Mr Lavrov said.

President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly accused the United States and the West of ignoring the need for an independent Palestinian state within 1967 borders. Putin on Sunday spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Gaza.

"This happened not in a vacuum," Mr Lavrov said, pointing to decades of blockade and unfulfilled promises about a Palestinian state.

The UN's Guterres has previously said that the Hamas attack did not happen in a vacuum. Israel said Guterres had justified the Hamas attacks with such words. Guterres rejected the Israeli accusations.

UKRAINE

Asked in the Al Jazeera interview if Russia was being hypocritical with its criticism about that fate of the Palestinians while Russia fights a war in Ukraine, Mr Lavrov said neither he nor Russia were hypocritical.

Mr Lavrov said that the West was trying to exhaust Russia in Ukraine by supplying weapons and that if peace talks were to take place then Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy would have to annul his own presidential decree.

"It is up to the Ukrainians to recognise how deep they are in the hole where the Americans put them," Mr Lavrov said when asked if the war was at a stalemate.

When asked by Al Jazeera what the chances were of diplomacy to bring about a ceasefire or peace in Ukraine, he said: "You'll have to call Mr Zelenskiy because a year and half ago he signed a decree prohibiting any negotiations with Putin."

Mr Lavrov said that a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia was almost reached in Istanbul in March and April 2022 based on the idea of Ukrainian neutrality.

"This deal was aborted - it was cancelled because the Americans and the Brits decided that if Putin is ready to sign it then lets exhaust him more. That's what they are doing now. Stalemate or no stalemate - that is the fact," Mr Lavrov said.

Asked in the interview about the August plane crash which killed Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, Mr Lavrov said investigators had probed the crash.

"As regards the soldiers from Wagner group... quite a number of them went to Belarus and started to serve there," Mr Lavrov said "Others joined the regular structures of the Russian army - and they continue to serve."

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/hZHNGds
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

US Power Firm Admits It May Have Sparked Texas' Largest Wildfire Ever

A US power company admitted Thursday that its equipment may have sparked the largest wildfire in Texas' history. Xcel -- the parent of Southwest Public Service Company, which provides electricity to part of the state -- said it was working with officials investigating the cause of the blaze that charred more than a million acres (over 400,000 hectares). "Based on currently available information, Xcel Energy acknowledges that its facilities appear to have been involved in an ignition of the Smokehouse Creek fire," the company said. Hundreds of homes are thought to have been destroyed in the fire, which is known to have killed at least two people and over 3,000 farm animals. Xcel, which is facing at least one lawsuit, denied its equipment was improperly maintained. "However, we encourage people who had property destroyed by, or livestock lost in, the Smokehouse Creek fire to submit a claim to Xcel Energy through our claims process," the statement said. The W
Post a Comment
Read more

It's Official, Kamala Harris Is Democratic Candidate For US Election

US Vice President Kamala Harris effectively secured the Democratic party's presidential nomination Friday, confirming her remarkable rise to party standard bearer in November's showdown against Republican Donald Trump. Kamala Harris was the sole candidate on the ballot for a five-day electronic vote of nearly 4,000 party convention delegates. She will be officially crowned at a Chicago convention later this month. "I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States," Kamala Harris, 59, said on a phone-in to a party celebration after securing enough votes by the second day of the marathon vote. In the two weeks since President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, Kamala Harris has gained full control of the party. No other Democrats stepped forward to challenge her elevation to the top of the ticket, making her confirmation as the first Black and South Asian woman ever to secure a major party's nomination a formality. The a
Post a Comment
Read more

All You Need To Know About Donald Trump's 1st Criminal Trial

Donald Trump goes on trial Monday for allegedly covering up hush money payments to hide affairs ahead of the 2016 presidential election which propelled him into the White House. He will become the first former US president to go on criminal trial when jury selection begins next week. Here are the key questions ahead of the landmark trial: What is Trump accused of? As Trump closed in on victory in the 2016 presidential election, adult film star Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged 2006 sexual tryst with Trump. The payments, made by Trump's lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, were revealed by The Wall Street Journal in January 2018. Prosecutors have seized on the concealment of the payments as "legal fees" in the Trump Organization's accounts when Cohen was reimbursed as the heart of their case. Prosecutors say Trump "concealed the reason for these payments... which clearly were paid in order to influence voters," former prosec
Post a Comment
Read more