Russian Ambassador to Israel Anatoly Viktotov was summoned to the Israeli foreign ministry on Sunday following the visit by a Hamas delegation to Moscow.
“Deputy Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Simona Halperin explained to the ambassador that Israel is taking seriously the lack of Moscow’s clear and unequivocal condemnation of the terrorist organization Hamas, as well as Russia’s actions in international organizations,” the Israeli foreign ministry said.
A senior Hamas delegation had travelled to Moscow to meet Russian foreign ministry officials in the organisation’s first high-profile international visit since it launched a raid in Southern Israel on 7 October, killing an estimated 1,400 people and taking another 220 hostage.
The delegation was led by Mousa Abu Marzook, a founder and political leader of Hamas, who met the Russian deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov. Marzook, who lives in exile in Qatar, travelled to Moscow after an earlier meeting in Doha with Bogdanov and the Iranian deputy foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani.
The delegation was confirmed by representatives of Hamas and by Russia, and a photo showed the three men meeting at the Russian foreign ministry in Moscow.
“Abu Marzook, a member of the political bureau of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, is in Moscow,” said the Russian foreign ministry in a statement. “Contact with him took place in pursuit for the immediate release of foreign hostages held in the Gaza Strip, and issues related to ensuring the evacuation of Russian and other foreign citizens from the territory of the Palestinian enclave were discussed.”
