Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that completely destroying the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) is not realistic as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants, according to what was reported by the Russian TASS news agency.

Commenting on the attack in the occupied Syrian Golan, Lavrov said that his country condemns what he called "all terrorist attacks."

The agency quoted Lavrov as expressing his surprise at Israeli statements saying that "there are no civilians in Gaza and they are all terrorists there starting from the age of three," during the Russian minister's response to questions at an academic forum for experts earlier, which touched on "the tragedy taking place in Gaza and the West Bank."

Lavrov noted that Moscow "immediately condemned the October 7 attack carried out by Hamas against Israel, and at the same time categorically opposed the methods chosen by the Israeli leadership, violating all conceivable norms of international humanitarian law."

"I was very disturbed when Israel and its leaders began to argue that these methods were fully justified," Lavrov said.

Lavrov spoke about the statements of an Israeli official, when the international community called on Israel to spare civilians in Gaza, he said something like "There are no civilians there, they are all terrorists starting from the age of three," and Lavrov described that by saying "These are terrible words."

Lavrov explained that Moscow hopes that Israel will hear what he described as the voice of the overwhelming majority in the world regarding the situation in Gaza, reviewing statistics on the numbers of civilian casualties in the Strip, and he also shared some details of his recent phone conversation with his Israeli counterpart, Israel Katz, regarding the matter.

Lavrov referred to what he called the West's double standards regarding the Ukrainian conflict and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying that those standards "are now appearing very clearly."

Establishment of the Palestinian State

While Lavrov stressed that Russia has “good relations with Israel” and that Moscow has always called for “the need to ensure Israel’s security under any circumstances,” he noted that “for many decades, the right of the Palestinians to their state, declared by the UN General Assembly, has been blocked and ignored, and the territory allocated to the Palestinian state has been shrinking.”

Lavrov explained that his country has long led efforts for Palestinian unity and that "over the past 10 years, all Palestinian factions have been gathered in Moscow to unify their efforts and present a common front in negotiations with Israel," referring to the meeting last February in which the Palestinian factions adopted a joint statement of intent for reconciliation and ending the division.

Earlier in mid-December, the Russian foreign minister said it was unacceptable for Israel to use Hamas as a pretext to collectively punish the Palestinian people.

Lavrov pointed out that the October 7 attack came after long years of siege and unfulfilled promises to establish a Palestinian state, and that Russia has been trying for years to make clear to the Israelis that "the failure to establish a Palestinian state is what most fuels extremism in the Middle East."

The Russian minister also called on the United Nations to hold an international conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, considering it the only possible way to resolve the crisis "forever," stressing that Moscow would not agree to any settlement in the Middle East that would affect Israel's security and not provide for the establishment of a Palestinian state.