MOSCOW, May 15. /TASS/. The chances of settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through diplomacy currently appears elusive, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"Amid military operations, the suffering of the civilian population is intensifying: People are dying every day, including UN employees, and there is no stable channel for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza residents," the diplomat said at a news conference. "All this reaffirms that at this stage the prospects for the conflict to move into a political and diplomatic domain <...> look elusive."

Zakharova reiterated that from the very start of the escalation of the conflict Russia called for a ceasefire, repeatedly stating it at the UN. According to the diplomat, the only reliable way to end the war and prevent future relapses of confrontation, which claim the lives of innocent people, is "to create conditions for the resumption of political settlement as part of direct Israeli-Palestinian dialogue."

On May 6, the Israel Defense Forces announced the beginning of preparations to evacuate the population of eastern Rafah. On May 7, the army announced the start of a military operation in some neighborhoods in the east of the city and took control of the Rafah border crossing on the border between Gaza and Egypt.

The situation in the Middle East sharply escalated following an incursion of Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip into Israel on October 7, accompanied by killings of residents of Israeli settlements near the border and taking more than 200 hostages, including children, women and elderly people. Hamas cast the attack as a response to Israeli actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Israel declared a complete siege of the Gaza Strip and started striking the enclave and parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.