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UNITED NATIONS, September 27. /TASS/. There is no justification for the collective punishment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip or for plans to annex the West Bank, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during the General Debate of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly. "Russia condemned the attack by Hamas militants on peaceful Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. However, there is no justification for the brutal killing of Palestinian civilians, just as there is none for terrorist acts," Lavrov said. "There is no justification for the collective punishment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian children are dying under bombings and from hunger, hospitals and schools are being destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of people are left homeless. There is no justification for plans to annex the West Bank." Lavrov stressed that the world is in fact "dealing with an attempt at a sort of coup d’·tat aimed at burying UN decisions on the creation of a Palestinian state." He noted: "The other day, a number of Western governments announced their recognition of the State of Palestine. Yet they had signaled their intention to do so several months ago. The question arises: why wait so long?" "Apparently, they were hoping that soon there would be nothing left to recognize," the minister said. "The situation requires urgent action to prevent such a scenario - an imperative firmly voiced by participants at the high-level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine," he added.
