Story highlights "Was Israel's response disproportionate? I think it was," Sanders said

"Of course we are going to support Israel, but you cannot ignore the needs of the Palestinian people," he added

Washington (CNN) Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders -- the first Jewish candidate to win a presidential nominating contest -- believes Israel's response in the 2014 Gaza war was "disproportionate."

"Was Israel's response disproportionate? I think it was," he told CNN's Jake Tapper in an interview that aired Sunday on "State of the Union."

"Israel has a 100% -- and no one will fight for that principle more strongly than I will -- has the right to live in freedom, independently and in security without having to be subjected to terrorist attacks," he said. "But I think that we will not succeed to ever bring peace into that region unless we also treat the Palestinians with dignity and respect, and that is my view."

The seven-week conflict in 2014 was an Israeli response to Hamas rocket fire into southern Israel. More than 2,130 Palestinians were killed in the conflict, and it's not clear how many were civilians. At the time of the ceasefire, the United Nations estimated that more than 70% were civilians, but Israel reported a higher number of militants among the dead.

Tapper asked Sanders about an interview he gave to the New York Daily News earlier this month in which the Vermont senator said his recollection was that more than 10,000 innocent people were killed in the conflict. Sanders told Tapper that he wasn't sure what the death toll was, and when a Daily News editor clarified it to him, he accepted it.

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