MINSK, December 14. /TASS/. The situation around the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has reached an impasse, with not solution visible yet at this point, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergey Naryshkin said.

"The situation, in my opinion, is in a dead end right now. And there is no way out of this dead end visible at this point, unfortunately. The Israeli leadership claims that the hostilities will only end when Hamas is destroyed. This is hardly possible," he said, answering a question from TASS.

"Amid this background, people are being pushed from their territory, from their homes. This is a big humanitarian catastrophe, simply a huge one," Naryshkin continued. "Cruelty has caused even greater cruelty, and the death toll is currently being assessed at 18,000 or even more."

The official explained that the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict caused a radicalization of the Arab society, "which may cause the expansion of terrorism in Arab states and beyond - primarily in the West."

"Unfortunately, the international mechanisms for settlement of the middle eastern conflict do not work. First of all, the so-called Quarter for the Middle East [Russia, the US, the UN, the EU - TASS] is non-operational. And it is non-operational, because its operation has been blocked by Washington for several years already," he concluded.