The renewed tension in the Middle East, after an Israeli raid on Thursday followed by attacks in East Jerusalem, is widely worrying the international community. And if Anthony Blinken arrived this Sunday in Cairo before meeting Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, Moscow also wants to show its involvement in the region.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, currently on a diplomatic tour of Africa, called on his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts on Sunday to show “maximum responsibility” and to avoid any further deterioration in the situation, during telephone interviews according to his ministry. . The head of Russian diplomacy met with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and with his Palestinian counterpart Riyad Al-Maliki.
Palestinian killed
During these calls, “the Russian side underlined that Moscow was seriously concerned about the new round of violence” in the region, the ministry said. He “called on the Israeli and Palestinian partners to show maximum responsibility and to refrain from any action likely to cause a further deterioration of the situation”, according to the same source.
On Saturday, Russian diplomacy had already called in a statement on all parties for “maximum restraint” after the attacks carried out on Friday and Saturday in East Jerusalem after a deadly Israeli military raid on Thursday in the occupied West Bank, followed by rocket fire from Gaza towards Israel and retaliatory Israeli air strikes. On Sunday, Israeli guards killed a Palestinian in the West Bank and the violence of recent days has raised fears of a new flare-up in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.