MOSCOW, October 2. /TASS/. Russia calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities in the Middle East and the search for a diplomatic solution to the current dangerous situation, Ambassador to Israel Anatoly Viktorov said.
"Our call is very simple: it's high time to immediately stop hostilities, stop violating the territorial integrity <...> and start searching for a political and diplomatic solution to this extremely difficult situation," the diplomat said during a Rossiya-24 TV broadcast.
He pointed to the fact that a meeting of the UN Security Council "will probably take place today" and "a lot will depend on the position that the US will take this time." "For many years, even decades, we were told that the keys to peace in the Middle East, the keys to a settlement, were in the hands of the Americans. But they have lost either those keys or the safe where they should be. It's high time for them to make up their minds and not to engage in unilateral settlement attempts. They won't succeed in deterring the sides anyway," Viktorov emphasized.
On the evening of October 1, the IRGC launched a massive ballistic and hypersonic missile attack against Israel in retaliation for the deaths of top leaders of the Hamas, Hezbollah and IRGC groups. Tehran said that 90% of the missiles successfully hit their designated targets. Israel, in turn, said that Iran had fired some 180 missiles into the country, most of which were intercepted.
The Israeli Chief of the General Staff vowed to "choose the right time" to surprise Iran with an attack, while Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Jewish warned that attacks on Israel will be ramped up.