STATEMENT BY NIKOLAI TRUTSUK, DEPUTY OFFICIAL SPOKESMAN OF RUSSIA'S MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS REGARDING ISRAELI AIR RAIDS ON GAZA STRIP

Unofficial translation from Russian

STATEMENT BY NIKOLAI TRUTSUK, DEPUTY OFFICIAL SPOKESMAN OF RUSSIA'S MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Regarding Israeli Air Raids on Gaza Strip

According to incoming reports, Israeli air raids on the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours killed 11 Palestinians and wounded more than 100 people, among them many women and children. We express condolences to the families of the dead and sympathy for those injured. What is happening causes in Moscow profound regret and increasing alarm.

The Israeli command justifies combat actions in densely populated Palestinian areas by a fight against terrorism and calls the operations a response to attacks of Palestinians. In the course of these antiterrorist operations in occupied territories, falling within the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Israeli army uses heavy equipment, tanks and aircraft, which leads to increasing casualties among the civilian population and serious destruction of inhabited points.

Yet it is clear that the disproportionate use of arms, just as staking exclusively on force will not bring peace to either Palestinians or Israelis and will not stop terror. On the contrary, all this leads to a further spiraling of confrontation and to new tragedies and suffering for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.

The logic of military confrontation should be overcome as soon as possible.

A way out of the dead end exists, and the international community actively supports it. But this requires both parties' political will and their fulfillment of the obligations they have assumed under the Road Map plan for Middle East settlement.

October 21, 2003