MITCHELL: “If you could stand by for a moment we have Richard Engel joining us from Gaza. I know communications are difficult. Richard, can you update us on what you’re seeing there?”
ENGEL: “Yes, we will give it a shot. The communications have been dicey so I apologize if we cut out. But here in Gaza, the cease-fire is holding. There haven’t been any rockets fired from here. There haven’t been any incoming strokes. But what there is, is a lot of damage here and a lot of anger. I’ve been able to get around today, talk to people, people who’re holding funerals, people are going back to their homes to see what they can salvage. A lot of people just going onto the street because they had been inside for the last several days and surveying the damage. And there is significant damage. Entire buildings have been brought down and then you see many more — evidence many more of specific shots in which individual apartments were damaged but the rest of the building is more less intact. And in many cases, I’m talking to families and they tell me that the Israel strikes were not as precise as Israel likes to describe them. Two medical students who are known to me personally said that their professor was killed along with his entire family. And that he wasn’t Hamas, that he hated Hamas. So, there is a lot of anger here that there was an exaggerated use of force. But Hamas is seeing this a victory. Hamas is declaring this a victory. [indecipherable] Hamas has been linking this to Jerusalem which is I think not surprising that we are seeing the clashes and unrest in Jerusalem today.”
MITCHELL: “And I apologize, Richard. Thanks for powering through. There was some audio hiccups there but we’ve got the gist of what you were saying. And it’s certainly significant that Hamas is declaring victory because as long as they are declaring victory and feel that their demands were met or that their needs were met, political or otherwise, then as long as they celebrate, they won’t be firing rockets and both sides can feel that they gained something.” [crosstalk]
ENGEL: “How is our connection now? We just boosted this.”
MITCHELL: “Much better. Yeah, much better.”
ENGEL: “We just boosted this signal —“
MITCHELL: “Richard I’m just going to point out that —“
ENGEL: “Oh, OK. So —“
MITCHELL: “— as long — as long as they are declaring victory, they feel that they achieved something. And if Israel feels they’ve achieved something then there is a window for negotiations to try to get some reconstruction help. And that’s why the secretary of state is coming among others.”
ENGEL: “Well, Hamas feels very strong right now. And so it doesn’t seem like Hamas is in a position or wants to break this cease-fire and start launching rockets again. It’s feeling very good. Its position has been solidified. It feels that it became the voice of the Palestinian people and that it launched this operation in order to save Jerusalem, to protect Jerusalem, to protect Muslims who were attacked during Ramadan by Israeli police. That’s the narrative that is coming out of here. That’s why we’re seeing the continuation today of tension in Jerusalem. Because Hamas wants to say that it was emerged from victorious from this, it became the voice of the entire Palestinian movement and it wants to continue moving forward. So if there are any winners out of this, and it’s very hard to see how anyone could win when you walk through the destruction in Gaza it would be — it would be Hamas. And on the Israeli side it would probably be the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whose position has also been solidified politically from this. So, there are a lot of [critics] here in Gaza who say that the only two people who benefited from this are the leaders of — the leader of Hamas and the leader of Israel.”
MITCHELL: “Richard Engel , thanks so much for everything over there in Gaza.”