Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called on UN chief Antonio Guterres to organise an international conference to find a lasting solution to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, AFP reports.

“The only way for this problem to be solved forever, and to be solved in a just way, is to hold an international conference with all five permanent members of the UN Security Council,” Lavrov told Russian senators.

He added that the conference should include representatives of countries from the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

“The UN should play a leading role in convening such an event,” he said, adding: “I trust that the UN Secretary General is quite capable of such an initiative.”

Lavrov said that the “continuing injustice against the Palestinian people, to whom the creation of a Palestinian state was promised… fuels very serious terrorist and extremist sentiments.”