Russia says Israel is deliberately obstructing investigations into crimes it has committed in the besieged Gaza Strip.
In a speech delivered at the United Nations Security Council on Monday, Russian Deputy Ambassador to the UN Maria Zabolotskaya said Moscow would “welcome any efforts aimed at shedding light on the crimes committed during the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”
Israel began the campaign of death and destruction in Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
Since then, the regime has killed at least 31,110 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured some 72,760 others. The regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
“We are convinced that the UN is not doing enough in this area. Thousands of people are being killed. According to the International Court of Justice, there is a high probability of genocide currently taking place in the Gaza Strip,” Zabolotskaya said during the UNSC session.
She said the world body “has no access to reliable information”, stressing, “Israel deliberately impedes such access.”
On January 26, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a ruling in which it acknowledged that there was a plausible suspicion that Israel is acting contrary to its obligations in terms of the Genocide Convention in carrying out its military operations in Gaza since that October day.
The ICJ ordered Israel to take all possible measures to shield the Palestinian people and prevent the crime of genocide.
Elsewhere in her remarks, Zabolotskaya said Russia “unequivocally condemned from the outset the acts of violence committed against Israelis on 7 October.”
“We firmly believe that those crimes, no matter how heinous, cannot be seen as a justification for collective punishment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and for Israel’s flagrant violations of international humanitarian law against Palestinian civilians,” she said.
“That is our position, and as far as we can tell, the vast majority of the world’s states think the same,” Russia’s envoy to the UN said.
