MOSCOW, November 12. /TASS/. The Gaza Strip will never belong to Israel, Palestinian Ambassador to Russia Abdel Hafiz Nofal told TASS.
"The most important thing for us is to stop the war and protect people. We’ll see what will be later. This is not Israel’s land and will never be," he said, when asked whether Palestine trusts the US’ statements that Washington is against the occupation of the Gaza Strip by Israel, forcing the Palestinian population out of the enclave or reducing its territory.
He called on European countries and the United States, which are helping Israel, to "call an international conference and recognize two states. "It will be the best option so that Palestinians and Israelis could live side by side. And we don’t understand and don’t want understand what they [the United States] are saying now. The most important thing is to stop Israel’s attack," he stressed.
Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 200 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.