MOSCOW, October 4. /TASS/. By not condemning Israel’s recent attacks on Lebanon, Washington is in fact egging its Middle East ally to keep expanding the war zone, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

"Political assassinations, like the ones that took place on July 31 in Tehran and on September 27 in Beirut, are a matter of grave concern for us," Lavrov said in his article for Russia in Global Affairs magazine 'The UN must recover its central role in coordinating actions by nations' posted by the Foreign Ministry on Friday.

"When Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon in the early hours of October 1, the United States administration did not condemn in any way this act of aggression against a sovereign state," Lavrov continued. "Therefore, Washington de factor encouraged its Middle Eastern ally to expand the combat zone."

According to Russia’s top diplomat: "The tragic and unacceptable developments in the Arab-Israeli conflict, in Lebanon, in Yemen, in the waters of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, in Sudan and in other hotspots in Africa reflect an undeniable fact: security can either be equal and indivisible for all, or there will be no security for anyone."

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from Gaza, killing residents of Israeli border settlements and taking over 250 hostages, including women, children and the elderly.

Hamas described its attack as retaliation for the aggressive actions taken by Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians before the crisis, launching air strikes on Gaza as well as some parts of Lebanon and Syria before starting a ground operation in the Palestinian enclave.