Russia says it cannot recognize Israel’s methods against Hamas as 'acceptable'

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - Russia’s foreign minister on Wednesday said that Moscow cannot recognize Israel’s methods against the Palestinian group Hamas as "acceptable."

“From the very beginning, we strongly condemned … the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7 against Israeli civilians … and urgently called for the need to suppress such terrorist activities. But, at the same time, we cannot recognize as acceptable those methods which began to be used (by Israel) against Hamas, from which civilians suffered the most,” Sergey Lavrov said in a speech at the Russian Federation Council.

Saying that Israel apparently believes it has the right to destroy Hamas by any means, Lavrov said that they see the result of such a line of thought through the huge number of casualties in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, when Israel’s offensive began, following the Hamas attack.

“Neighborhoods are being razed to the ground, more than 18,000 civilians have already died, this figure is increasing every day, two-thirds of them are women and children. The situation is terrible," Lavrov said.​​​​​​​