The Russian foreign minister has urged the Palestinian Hamas movement to stop firing rockets on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, the Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.
Sergei Lavrov said during a telephone conversation on Wednesday with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal that rocket attacks from Gaza on southern parts of Israel were "unacceptable."
Mashaal told Lavrov that the Hamas leadership would like the "lull" to continue, was not interested in the escalation of tensions and was taking steps to prevent rocket attacks from that area.
A rocket attack from the Gaza Strip killed a civilian in Israel on March 18, coming in the wake of Israel's recent announcement that it would build 1,600 houses for Jewish families in the disputed area of East Jerusalem. The move, which posed a threat to the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, was condemned by the Middle East Quartet.
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks came to a halt in December 2008, when Israel launched an attack on the Gaza Strip in a bid to put an end to the firing of homemade rockets at southern Israel by Palestinian militants based in the enclave. The conflict left 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead.
Settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, both occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, has been the main obstacle to reviving peace negotiations.
The Palestinians, who had recently agreed to hold UN-backed indirect talks with Israel, said they would pull out of negotiations unless Israeli new building plans were abandoned.
MOSCOW, April 1 (RIA Novosti)
