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Vassily Nebenzia says UN Security Council should restart peace talks ‘with a view to establishing a Palestinian state’. Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations has called for a “humanitarian ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip and Israel, while blaming the United States for the continuing conflict. -snip- “We’re convinced that the Security Council must act to put an end to the bloodshed and restart peace negotiations with a view to establishing a Palestinian state as it was supposed to do so long ago,” Russian ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said after the closed-door meeting of the Security Council on Friday.

Palestinian group Hamas early Saturday hailed Russia’s rejection of an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip. “We appreciate Russian President Vladimir Putin’s position on the ongoing aggression against our people and his rejection of the Gaza siege, cutting off relief supplies, and targeting safe civilians there,” Hamas said in a statement. The group also welcomed Russian efforts “to stop the barbaric and systematic aggression against our Palestinian people in Gaza.” Putin warned on Friday that civilian casualties will be "absolutely unacceptable" in case of an Israeli ground operation in the Gaza Strip.

Russia's foreign ministry urged Israel on Thursday to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza to allow in food and medicine and said it was unacceptable that what it called the "indiscriminate" bombing of the Gaza Strip was causing so many civilian casualties. Moscow issued the statement after Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov spoke to Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary general of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), by phone. The Russian foreign ministry said Bogdanov and Al-Sheikh had agreed on the need for a ceasefire and for the opening of human corridors to deliver food and medicine to Gaza's...

Vladimir Putin on Friday compared Israel to Nazi Germany as he turned on old ally Benjamin Netanyahu. The Russian president said Israel’s blockade of Gaza ahead of an expected ground offensive against Hamas was “unacceptable”. Israel has been pounding Gaza with air strikes and artillery, with some 300,000 troops stationed on the border in anticipation for a ground operation. Putin said this was comparable to Nazi forces’ siege of Leningrad between September 1941 and January 1944, when at least 750,000 of the city’s civilians starved to death. He told journalists on a visit to Kyrgyzstan that Israel’s plans for Gaza...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticised calls to the Palestinians to leave the besieged Gaza Strip and head to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as “something that could lead to peace”, adding that Gaza is part of the historical land of Palestine. “It is difficult to give assessments. This is the land on which the Palestinians live, and this is their land historically. It was also supposed to be where an independent Palestinian state would be established that would include Gaza. In my opinion, this is not something that can lead to peace,” he said. -snip- “There is a clear plan that...