MOSCOW. Aug 20 (Interfax) - Russia is concerned about the situation in the Gaza Strip and calls on Palestine and Israel to promptly resume the talks on a long-term truce.
"Russia is expressing serious concerns about the new escalation of violence around the Gaza Strip, which violates the agreements on a humanitarian ceasefire earlier reached during indirect contacts between Palestine and Israel in Cairo," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a report released on Wednesday.
"We are calling for a resumption of the practice of observing such humanitarian pauses in military confrontation, which have justified themselves, and promptly go back to discussing the parameters of a long-term truce on the basis of the peace initiative proposed by Egypt," the document says.
The fighting between Palestinian groups and the Israeli army resumed in the Gaza Strip on August 19. According to media reports, some fifty missiles were fired at Israel from the enclave and some 15 of them wee intercepted by Israel. Israel, for its part, attacked several dozen targets in the Gaza Strip, killing at least three Palestinians and wounding forty.