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Middle East Quartet needs to work out political solution of conflict, says Moscow

The ceasefire in the Gaza Strip came into force overnight to May 21, after eleven days of missile strikes

MOSCOW, May 24. /TASS/. The Middle East Quartet (Russia, the US, the UN, the EU) should work out a plan to achieve a political resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a Quartet meeting should be held as soon as possible, Russia’s Special Presidential Envoy for the Middle East and Africa, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told TASS on Monday.

According to him, the latest developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "require a [Quartet] meeting at the high political level, ministerial level." "The faster we can gather at such a level, the more useful it will be to work out effective steps to move forward," the envoy said. "The ceasefire is necessary but the lack of political prospects turns it into some sort of d·j· vu, similar crises with victims and damage appear from time to time. We need a political solution."

The Egypt-brokered ceasefire in the Gaza Strip came into force overnight to May 21, after eleven days of missile strikes. Radical Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli army began exchanging rocket fire from May 10, following unrest near the Al Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, triggered by an Israeli court ruling to confiscate homes from several Arab families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.