Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized Moscow’s “dangerous cooperation” with Iran and pushed back at its harsh criticism of the Gaza war during a prolonged conversation with the country’s President Vladimir Putin on Sunday.
The two leaders held a 50-minute conversation on Sunday amid growing tension between the two countries as Moscow tightens its military cooperation with Tehran, as the Iranian-backed Houthis kept up its threat against global shipping routes in the Red Sea in response to the Gaza war.
A Houthi military spokesperson said all ships sailing to Israeli ports are banned from the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea until Gaza receives all the food and medicine it needs.
The US has said that Iran is responsible for those attacks.
Netanyahu's phone call with Putin
Netanyahu in his talk with Putin expressed his “displeasure” with Russia’s support of the United Nations Security Council for a ceasefire resolution that did not involve a condemnation of Hamas’ October 7 attack against southern Israel. Hamas killed over 1,200 people and seized some 250 hostages on that day.
The United States blocked the UNSC ceasefire call and the United Kingdom abstained while Russia, China, and France supported the ceasefire call. All five countries are permanent UNSC members and they all have veto power, but the US was the only one who used it.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the Doha Forum virtually that while his country “strongly condemned” the October 7 attack, “we do not believe it’s not acceptable to use this event for collective punishment of millions of Palestinian people with indiscriminate shelling of the civilian quarters.”
Hamas has asserted that some 17,000 Palestinians have been killed in violence related to the Gaza war. Israel has said that some 7,000 Hamas terrorists are among those fatalities.
The UNSC resolution should have been stronger but even the one that vetoed was ‘better than nothing,” Lavrov said as he called for the international community to pressure Israel to halt the war.
“The Americans are very good at cancel culture. When they don’t like some part of history or events, they just cancel what preceded it,” Lavrov said. But it’s important to remember what the roots of the conflict were, as he blamed Israel for events going back to its 1948 War of Independence.
There is a reason that Palestinians in Gaza feel victimized, Lavrov said.
“The single most dangerous factor igniting extremism in the Middle East is the unsolved nature of the Palestinian state,” he said.
Lavrov did not respond when pressed as to whether he was hypocritical about his criticism of Israel given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “That’s up to you to judge,” he told the reporter who interviewed him from the Doha Forum stage.
The Kremlin said Russia was ready to give all possible assistance to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and de-escalate the conflict.
"Vladimir Putin reaffirmed the principle position of rejecting and condemning terrorism in all its forms," the Kremlin said in a statement.
"At the same time, it is extremely important that countering terrorist threats does not lead to such grave consequences for the civilian population.”
At the Doha Forum Lavrov also spoke of his country’s relations with Hamas’ political branch in Qatar, noting that it had used those ties to help secure the release of the hostages. Qatar last month mediated a deal by which 105 captives were freed, including an Israeli-Russian citizen.
Israel must act with force
Netanyahu in his conversation with Putin said that “any country that would suffer a criminal terrorist attack such as Israel experienced would act with no less force than the one in which Israel operates,” the PMO said.
Netanyahu thanked Lavrov for Russia’s efforts to free the hostages, adding that “Israel would use all means, both political and military, to release all of our abductees.
Netanyahu also asked Russia to pressure the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit the captives in Gaza.
Separately in a statement to his government on Sunday Netanyahu lauded the Biden administration for its support of Israel both in Washington and at the UN, including sending Israel needed military supplies for the war.
“An additional shipment of important ammunition for continuing the war will arrive today; in effect, it is already here.
“I thank President Biden, who I spoke with on Friday about both the US taking the correct and just stand in the UN Security Council and – of course – the material assistance that the US is providing to the IDF,” he said.
Netanyahu noted that he had also spoken over the weekend with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as with other international leaders.
“I told them that it is impossible to support the elimination of Hamas on the one hand, while on the other pressing us to end the war, which would prevent the elimination of Hamas.
“I think that in this fight, justice is on our side and unity as well. When we are united as a people and a state, no force can prevent us from doing the right thing,” he said.
Reuters contributed to this report.