UNITED NATIONS – The Palestinian Arab representative at the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, embarked yesterday on a diplomatic initiative designed to save Gaza-based terrorists from being punished by Israel for their daily rocket attacks across the border.

The initiative was meant to be a “follow-up to our previous 238 letters,” Mr. Mansour wrote to the president of the Security Council, Chinese ambassador Wang Guangya, yesterday.

It was one of the first Palestinian Arab attempts to mobilize the United Nations since Hamas won the elections earlier this year. The Hamas government’s refusal to agree to basic diplomatic conditions, however, has led to it being internationally isolated, complicating its attempt at traditional Arab diplomacy.

“The central objective is to stop this Israeli aggression against Gaza immediately,” Mr. Mansour told The New York Sun.

According to the Associated Press, Hamas officials yesterday urged rival groups in Gaza to refrain from launching rockets at Israel “without official permission.” Israeli officials were skeptical of the request, however, saying that as long as rockets continue to be fired at Israel, the army has no choice but to eliminate their sources in Gaza.

In his letter, complaining about a “military campaign” of “extrajudicial executions,” Mr. Mansour appealed for world action to stop Israel’s response to the rockets. “The Security Council in particular, in upholding its duty to maintain international peace and security, should take action,” he wrote.

An 8-year-old Palestinian Arab girl was killed yesterday as the Israeli army shelled the northern Gaza village of Beit Lahyia. Mr. Mansour’s letter, which was written before the event, detailed the deaths of 18 others who had been killed in Gaza since Friday. Most of the dead were armed terrorists.

After a decision by the Arab group at the United Nations yesterday officially to call for a Security Council meeting, Mr. Mansour said he hoped the council would deliberate and adopt a unanimous statement “as soon as possible.” But Israeli officials said they would not participate in deliberations tomorrow or Thursday due to Passover. The United Nations also shuts down for Good Friday.

Beyond those immediate problems, and the fact that all previous attempts by Palestinian Arabs to mobilize the Security Council to punish Israel have met strong American resistance, Mr. Mansour finds himself in a new diplomatic complication, as he represents a government shunned by the main powers on the council.

Refusing to recognize Israel, to disarm, and to accept previous agreements, the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority is being increasingly isolated by the European Union and America. Although Mr. Mansour makes a point in speeches to the United Nations to present himself as an envoy of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which does not answer to Hamas, he blames Israel for the isolation of the authority.

“This military onslaught” in Gaza is but a continuation of an Israeli policy of isolating the Palestinian Arabs, withholding their taxes, and “punishing them for exercising their democratic right to vote,” Mr. Mansour told the Sun.

“The only policy we have is of live and let live,” said Israeli deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Carmon. “The terrorist organizations continue to attack, and the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority does nothing to stop them. Israel would end its defensive response the minute the rockets and planned suicide attacks stop.”