The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, described as horrible the conflict unleashed last Saturday in the region after Hamas launched a surprise attack against Israel, which was answered with a call for war against the Gaza Strip.

“The situation is horrible in extreme for our civil population, and the destruction is beyond imagination,” the diplomat told the press.

Mansour added that diplomatic efforts will continue, including contacts with the Security Council, to get the international community to support an end to the violence.

Palestinian national rights and aspirations “must be fulfilled, and there is a global consensus on them, a two-state solution living in peace and harmony as good neighbors, which would require the end of the occupation,” he stressed.

In the diplomat’s opinion, the path to peace requires that Israel recognize the existence of Palestine; “that we are human and that we have national rights and hopes.”

Mansour denounced the hate speech from Israel in ignoring his people. “If you keep repeating that, expecting to obtain different results from what you are receiving, which are more and more tragedies, pain, hatred and deepening of the conflict, then you are deceiving yourself, you are not living in reality,” he stressed.

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