Representatives of Palestinian movements gathered in Moscow this week to discuss issues related to the conflict in the Middle East as part of the Russian-initiated “Inter-Palestinian Dialogue”.
On 29 February, at a meeting in Moscow with Palestinian representatives Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov condemned the brutality of Israel’s response in Gaza following the 7 October Hamas attack. He stated at the meeting:
“The absolute priority is to stop the bloodshed.”
The meeting of about a dozen representatives of Palestinian political forces to overcome their internal differences will last until 2 March. The Palestinian representatives include “delegates from factions within the PLO, including Fatah, as well as participants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.”
The talks between representatives of Hamas and the Fatah political faction come days after Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh resigned.
Sergey Lavrov condemned the position of the US in the UN Security Council, which with its veto “systematically blocks” diplomatic efforts by a number of countries to establish a ceasefire. Most recently, the US blocked a draft resolution introduced by Algeria on 20 February.
More than 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the conflict between Hamas and Israel, the Hamas Health Ministry said on 29 February. Israel launched the military operation in response to an unprecedented Hamas attack that, according to Israeli figures, killed some 1,140 people, most of them civilians.
