KUALA LUMPUR, July 28 Moscow does not yet see any prospects for ending the bloodshed in the Middle East, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, commenting on the missile attack on the Golan Heights.
«There is no prospect of ending this bloodshed in sight. Israel, through Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu, has repeatedly responded to calls for an immediate ceasefire by saying that it will not stop until it completely destroys Hamas. In my opinion, many of my colleagues share this point of view; it is an unrealistic task to completely destroy an organization that exists and that has sufficient capabilities and sufficient support, including in the Muslim world,» Lavrov told reporters.
«We condemn all terrorist actions undertaken by any structure. Thus, we condemned the Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli civilians on October 7 last year. But Israel's response is unacceptable,» he added.
On Saturday, the Israeli Ambulance Service (MDA) said 10 people were killed in the attack on the Golan Heights. The Times of Israel later cited Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari as saying the death toll had risen to 12. Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement denied involvement in the shelling of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Despite this, Israeli officials began to declare the proximity of war with Hezbollah and Lebanon.
The Axios portal, in turn, wrote that Hezbollah informed the UN that the incident in the city of Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights was connected with the fall of an Israeli interceptor missile on its territory.
Until 1967, the Golan Heights were part of the Syrian province of El-Quneitra, populated mainly by the Druze, a special ethno-confessional group of Arabs. During the Six-Day War of 1967, as well as the Fourth Arab-Israeli War in 1973, two-thirds of this strategic territory were captured by Israel. In 1981, the Jewish state unilaterally declared sovereignty over the region, but the UN Security Council did not recognize this decision.