Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday that there are no prospects for a quick stabilization of the situation in the Gaza Strip due to Israel’s “uncompromising attitude”.

Speaking at a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club on the Middle East, Lavrov said that “Taking into account the uncompromising attitude of the Israeli leadership to continue the military action in Gaza, now extending it to Rafah, we do not see prospects for a quick stabilization of the situation in this sector.”

Russia’s top diplomat reiterated the need to create conditions for “reliable sustainable settlement” in Gaza, while also achieving a ceasefire. He also said that Russia drew attention to its initiative in the UN Security Council to hold consultation with regional countries to “harmonize their approaches in support of the creation of a Palestinian state.”

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“Following this, we propose holding an inter-Palestinian meeting with the participation of all leading Palestinian factions to overcome the internal division,” Lavrov further said.

Lavrov also said the worsening of the situation in the Middle East has “not yet reached its limit,” underlining the escalations outside Palestine to be playing a role in regional instability.

The Russian foreign minister went on to accuse the US of pushing not only Palestine and Israel, but the entire Middle East into a “catastrophe.”

“In the Middle East processes, I mean the Americans, they preferred to rely on their dominance in the region and are now working to exclude Russia from various international efforts that are aimed at creating conditions for the establishment of lasting peace and stability,” he added.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 28,473 Palestinians have been killed, and 68,106 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.

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Moreover, at least 8,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip. 

Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.

The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all of the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.

(PC, AA)