MARK REGEV ISO
17:04:41:28 10336560 - AIRCHECK 10336566 - CLEAN AIR CNN Situation Room 5p-6:30p Jerusalem July 31, 2014 Topic: Israel/Gaza - Israeli strikes don't appear accidental Mark Regev Israeli Government Spokesman -------------------------- LOG -------------------------- (Taken from CC) 17:09:57 WOLF are you blaming israel? you're saying. 17:10:59 REGEV when we said last night already we didn't rule out the possibility that it was errant israeli fire but we said responsibility lies with those who are turning u.n. institutions into a combat zone. and our forces were taking hostile mortar fire and when you're in the dust and when you're in the dirt and you're in a combat zone and time is precious, if someone's shooting at you, you shoot back. i'm not justifying if there was an accident. if we inadvertently did in fact cause those deaths, we will of course, do an investigation. that's an operational failure. we regret every civilian casualty. but let's be clear here. if hamas is turning a u.n. school where refugees are seeking shelter, if they're turning that into a combat zone, it just shows what hamas is. they don't give a hoot about human lives. 17:10:52 WOLF are you acknowledging now that the weapon that killed those people in that u.n. shelter was in fact, an israeli weapon? 17:11:00 REGEV i'm not because we don't know that for a fact. we said honestly, yesterday after our initial investigation we know there was combat in that area, combat forced upon us by the hamas terrorists who were shooting mortar shells at our forces. we know there was an exchange of fire. we don't rule out the possibility that it could have been an errant israeli shell but don't know that for a fact. i want to say israel does not target civilians, does not target target solutions. if this was misfire, it was an honest accident. no one deliberately targeted civilians. let me be clear. 17:11:32 WOLF the u.n. high commissioner for civil rights navi pilae said she doesn't believe you necessary. she said none of the israeli strikes on homes, schools or u.n. shelters in her words appears to be accidental. 17:11:47 REGEV i want to be clear here. anyone who understands international humanitarian law and the laws of war knows the most important principle is the separation of non combatants from combatants. that's the first and primary law of war. and what does hamas do? hamas deliberately blurs the difference between combatants and noncombatants. they shoot at israeli civilians and you know today we passed 2,800 rocks fired at israeli cities from gaza by hamas terrorists. they're indiscriminately shooting at our civilians. at the same time, they're embedding their terrorist military machine in schools, in mocks, in urban areas in, football stadiums. using gaza civilians as a human shield. also, wolf, hamas is actually guilty of a double war crime. what israel doing? we're being targeted. they're shooting rocket after rocket at our people day after day, are close to 3,000 rockets on israeli cities in a period of three weeks. what are we supposed to do? i mean, if it's illegal for us to shoot back, you are denying my country its right to self-defense. 17:13:00 WOLF did you, israel, destroy that power plant in gaza with an air strike or artillery fire because all those people, hundreds of thousands of people are without without power in gaza right now? 17:13:10 REGEV we did not targeting that power station and we did a thorough investigation of all the forces, air forces, ground forces, naval forces so if in fact it could have been a mistake someone could have hit the power station. we believe it's not clear who hit the station. a lot of rockets fired by hamas at us malfunction, they fall short. they fall in the grassy strip. we saw two examples of that earlier this week when a hamas rocket landed on a school. all the hamas spokespeople say israel, israel. we could prove through photographs it was clearly a hamas rocket. that could have happened here, as well. 17:13:48 WOLF a lot of officials u.n. officials and others are saying if you did take out this power plant this time, it wouldn't have been the first time israel did it. in 2006 after the israeli soldier was captured, the forces acknowledged they blep up the power plant for what they said hamas did in capturing that israeli soldier. 17:14:13 REGEV this time i can assure you it was not a target. we have no evidence that anyone shot at it. when we make a mistake, if there is irand the fire, we admit it. the story on the beach two weeks ago, there it was a mistaken identification and we hit four boys and anpresident perez who you interviewed this morning publicly apologized because we don't see the people of gaza as an enemy and make a maximum effort to minimize what the experts call collateral damage. what is our challenge? you're dealing with a ruthless terrorist organization that has the opposite goal. not only are they trying to kill israeli civilians with those rockets, they are interested in palestinian civilians dying, putting them in danger so as to shield their own terrorist machine. 17:15:02 WOLF one final question. how close are you and hamas to a cease-fire that the u.s., the u.n., others are trying to put together? 17:15:10 REGEV you know, this conflict could have ended two weeks ago when we accepted the egyptian cease-fire proposals. it was hamas that rejected those proposals. how close are we to a cease-fire? i'd say ask hamas. even today, we had more than 100 rockets firing on israeli cities by hamas in gaza. we've done cease-fires in the past. israel has had fire for hours and always hamas continues shooting. a cease-fire means hamas must too stop shooting 17:15:38 WOLF mark regev, thanks very much for coming in. 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