Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett says Russian President Vladimir Putin had apologised for controversial remarks about the Holocaust made by his foreign minister.

Mr Putin also told Mr Bennett in a phone call that Russia would allow civilian passage from the besieged Azovstal steel works in the Ukrainian port of Mariupol via a humanitarian corridor handled by the United Nations and Red Cross.

Mr Bennett’s office said the PM had requested civilian passage from the steel works after an earlier conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Israel lambasted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this week for saying Adolf Hitler had Jewish roots, describing the remarks as an “unforgivable” falsehood that debased the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust.

Mr Lavrov made the comment on Sunday when asked why Russia said it needed to “denazify” Ukraine if Mr Zelensky was himself Jewish.

“When they say ‘What sort of nazification is this if we are Jews’, well I think that Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it means nothing,” Mr Lavrov told Italy’s Rete 4 channel, speaking through an Italian interpreter.

“For a long time now we’ve been hearing the wise Jewish people say that the biggest anti-Semites are the Jews themselves.”

After the call with Mr Putin, Mr Bennett said he had accepted the apology and thanked the Russian leader for “clarifying his regard for the Jewish people and the memory of the Holocaust”.

Israel, which has sought to keep good ties with Ukraine and Russia, has acted as an intermediary, although an Israeli official said Mr Bennett had suspended those efforts in late March to deal with a spate of Arab street attacks in Israel.

The latest phone calls with Mr Putin and Mr Zelensky suggested Israel may be resuming mediation efforts.