Государство Израиль
REGARDING DEATHS OF CIVILIANS DURING ISRAEL'S ANTITERRORIST OPERATIONS IN GAZA
Unofficial translation from Russian
PRESS RELEASE
According to reports coming in from the Palestinian territories, the operations carried by the Israeli army on April 8 with the use of aircraft in the Gaza City area claimed the lives of seven people and injured 47. There are children among those injured. The Israelis claim that these actions were taken as part of their targeting of persons involved in anti-Israeli armed actions.
Russia, which is itself encountering the threats of terrorism and political extremism, strongly condemns these immensely dangerous phenomena. Recently, however, in the course of the antiterrorist campaign of Israel in the Palestinian territories an ever greater number of innocent civilians are becoming their victims.
Moscow believes that the inadequate and disproportionate use of force, in the final analysis, discredits the fight against terrorism, and is being actively used by terrorists for the moral justification of and the expansion of support for their criminal actions.
The only reasonable way out of the situation that has developed in Palestinian-Israeli relations is to overcome the force-based confrontation and to launch the process of settlement on the basis of the Road Map drafted by the Quartet of international mediators.
Russia in coordination with its Quartet partners is ready to actively assist the accomplishment of this task.
April 9, 2003