January 4, 2009 Mansour: Israel plays by 'law of the jungle' Play video

(NECN) - Riyad Mansour, the United Nations Palestinian envoy, spoke with the media after an emergency meeting of the President of the U.N. Security Council on Saturday night to discuss the ramped-up attacks on Hamas in Gaza by Israel.

The following is Mansour's statement, which can be seen being given in the video player above:

"The Arab troika just finished meeting with the president of the Security Council and we discussed with him the position of the Arab Group that we need to have from the Security Council reaction tonight to bring this latest addition of aggression against our people in Gaza to an immediate halt.

And we expressed the strong desire for the Security Council tonight to send a very strong message by adopting a presidential statement that would request or demand from Israel an immediate ceasefire and for their troops to leave to the areas where they started from just before they started this latest ground aggression against our people.

Let me just also say also on this connection, when you have three-thousand Palestinians killed and injured in a span of one week and now we are moving into the second phase of this aggression, the ground phase, if it is not stopped immediately then we will have perhaps thousands more of Palestinians, civilians, killed and injured, this is immoral, this is illegal, this is unacceptable and the Security Council cannot continue to sit on its hands and not to force Israel to comply with its

position. The position that it adopted on Sunday morning and now we are in the second week of this aggression without seeing the Security Council bringing its will in such a way to bring Israel into compliance.

The Security Council has to bring Israel into compliance and to stop this aggression immediately. Somebody say that while Israel has to defend itself there is something known in international law that the element of proportionality. Israel cannot unleash massive fire power against 1.5 (m ) million Palestinians in Gaza in the way they did in which they killed and injured three-thousand Palestinians in reaction to one or two or ten rockets.

We say that all military activities including the rockets need to be stopped but there has to be a sense of proportionality. Israel cannot continue to behave as a state above international law, this is the law of the jungle. Israel has to behave according to international law and the norm of international law, especially with regard to proportionality would make it illegal, immoral and forbidden for Israel to do what they are doing against our people and it is the responsibility of the Security Council to bring Israel into compliance and to bring Israel into the rule of law and not the rule of the jungle."