The confrontation between Israel and Hamas, now in a renewed outburst of violence, has caught the international community by surprise and underlined, once again, the urgency of finding a solution to the Palestinian issue. While the population of the Arab and Islamic world has expressed outrage at Israel’s actions in Gaza, commentators in the media point out that most Arab governments are taking a more cautious stance.
The official Russian response to the steep escalation of the situation in Palestine stands between neutral and a somewhat half-hearted wait-and-see. In a July 18 interview with Russia 24, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared that President Vladimir Putin, in a recent conversation with US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reiterated his "understanding of Israel’s concerns regarding its security problems as a result of chaotic attacks from essentially homemade rockets, fired at random."
