BISHKEK, October 12. /TASS/. Foreign ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) are in favor of negotiations between Israel and Palestine and a ceasefire, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters.
"Today we touched on this issue, we will see before the [CIS] summit whether it will be possible to agree on a common position for its official presentation. But everyone is of the same opinion. Today we discussed it in a small group, that it is necessary to stop this conflict immediately, to respect international humanitarian law, to prevent any manifestations of terrorist actions, indiscriminate use of force, from which civilians on both sides can suffer and are already suffering in large numbers," he said after a meeting of the CIS Council of Foreign Ministers.
Lavrov pointed out that it is also necessary to focus on the "substance of the problem" of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the day before.
Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 when militants from the radical Palestinian Hamas movement staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem. Israel has announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip as it has been delivering rocket attacks on Gaza as well as some districts in Lebanon and Syria.
According to the latest official data, more than 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since the renewed outbreak of violence, while over 5,600 others have suffered wounds. In Israel, over 1,500 people have lost their lives and roughly 4,000 have been wounded in clashes, including on the West Bank of the Jordan River.