Israeli, Palestinian Officials Outline Views on Gaza Battle

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• GWEN IFILL:

  We are joined now by a representative of one side of the conflict, Riyad Mansour, who is the Palestinian observer at the United Nations.

  Mr. Ambassador, welcome.

• RIYAD MANSOUR, U.N. Palestinian Envoy:

  Thank you.

• GWEN IFILL:

  Is it true or do you agree, as many Israeli officials have been saying today, that you are now in all-out war?

• RIYAD MANSOUR:

  Well, we are facing a huge offensive by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza. And there is no justification whatsoever for killing and injuring about 1,800 Palestinians during the last two days.

  Most of them are innocent civilians. The U.N. today, when they gave a figure of 64 among the dead, are only women and children. From the rest of the dead, there are a large number of civilians. And among the 1,400 injured, there is a large number of civilians.

  The Israeli occupying forces are not following international law and responding in accordance with the law of proportionality. They cannot unleash a massive military power against what some of the Palestinians are doing from the Gaza Strip.

  This action by Israel is criminal, is inhuman, is immoral, and it should be stopped immediately.

• GWEN IFILL:

  Explain to me what Hamas was thinking, how you were thinking that the Israelis would respond when you began firing hundreds of Qassam rockets into Israel?

• RIYAD MANSOUR:

  Well, let me just say that it is to our record that we organized unilaterally three cease-fires as Palestinians, two of them under the leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas before Hamas took over in Gaza, and the last one, it was through the approval of Hamas after they took over Gaza.

  These cease-fires were always broken by continuous incursions by Israel and assassinations of Palestinian activists and other Palestinian nationalists.

  And, also, Gaza has been living a situation of a huge prison for the last few months, in which 1.5 million Palestinians were deprived of the basic necessities of life. This kind of situation is unsustainable using the language of the secretary-general of the United Nations.

  We need to, first of all, stop the fighting, stop the carnage immediately, and also to allow for sending humanitarian and economic needy things to the Gaza Strip through the opening of the — through the opening of the crossing borders, as the Security Council decided early on Sunday morning, so that we can allow for beginning the process of calm and dealing with the political situation to go back to the business of political negotiation for peace between us and our neighbor, Israel.

• GWEN IFILL:

  Does the current situation help you toward that goal? Or are you now frozen in a situation with ever escalating violence, where you won't be able to get back to that point where the borders are open again?

• RIYAD MANSOUR:

  This current situation does not help the peace effort. For those who want to move in the direction of peace, they do not go and kill and injure 1,800 Palestinians in a span of 48 hours.