Palestinian UN ambassador breaks down in tears describing deaths of children in Gaza

SAN FRANCISCO -- Riyad Mansour faced Israel's ambassador at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Wednesday and demanded he account for Israel's conduct during the war in Gaza.

"Is it civilized to block aid and to starve a people?" Mansour asked Danny Danon. "If this is civilized, what is barbarism?"

He spoke of the recent example of a six-year-old girl escaping the flames of a school-turned-shelter, where 36 people were killed including her mother and five siblings. And he decried the Israeli bombing of a doctor's house that killed nine of her 10 children.

His voice quivering, he recalled "the images of mothers embracing their motionless bodies, caressing their hair, talking to them, apologizing to them."

"Unbearable! How could anybody?" he asked, breaking into tears and putting his hand on his forehead.

After a long pause he excused himself and said, his voice still shaking, "I have grandchildren. I know what they mean to their families. ... Flames and hunger are devouring Palestinian children. This is why we are so outraged."

Israel blames Hamas for civilian deaths, saying militants operate in densely populated areas.