The BBC reported yesterday the findings of a 575 page UN Rport showing that both Israeli and Palestinian forces committed war crimes in the recent conflict in Gaza.It accuses Israel of deliberately using "disproportionate force" in the three-week operation in December and January.
The report also condemned rocket attacks by Palestinian groups which Israel says sparked its offensive.
Palestinians and human rights groups say more than 1,400 Gazans were killed, but Israel puts the figure at 1,166.
Three Israeli civilians and 10 Israeli soldiers were also killed.
Israel, which had refused to co-operate with the UN fact-finding team, said the report was "clearly one-sided".
 |  The military operation was a result of disrespect for the fundamental principle of 'distinction' in international humanitarian law   |
The investigation, led by South African judge Richard Goldstone, found evidence "indicating serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict", a UN statement said.
Israel also "committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity".
The Israeli operations, the document states, "were carefully planned in all their phases as a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population".
Civilian targets
The report accuses Israel of imposing "a blockade which amounted to collective punishment" in the lead-up to the conflict.
It says "the Israeli military operation was directed at the people of Gaza as a whole".
| ANALYSIS  Tim Franks, BBC News, Jerusalem If this report is to matter, it will be for a number of reasons. One is its length. There have been a slew of reports into the war in Gaza. This is the lengthiest, weighing in at 575 pages. There is the man who wrote it: Richard Goldstone is a judge and judicial investigator with an impressive record. The UN Human Rights Council, for whom he wrote this, is also no longer a body which is quite as easy for Israel to dismiss as a congenitally biased. The US has recently run for, and been elected to a seat on its council. Mr Goldstone has also shown a measure of political astuteness. This is not the first time that Israel, or Palestinian militants, have been accused of war crimes - and in Israel's case, crimes against humanity as well. But previous allegations have quickly begun to moulder on the shelf. Mr Goldstone recommended that the Security Council require Israel, and the Gaza authorities, to report in six months about its own investigations into the alleged crimes. If they did not come up to scratch, then the International Criminal Court should become involved. Who, said Judge Goldstone, could object to that? |
The reports says Israel must be held accountable for its actions during the war, a process which could lead to the conflict being referred to the International Criminal Court.
The report found there was also evidence that Palestinian groups had committed war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity, in their repeated rockets and mortars attacks on Israel.
It says the launching of rockets which "cannot be aimed with precision at military targets" breaches the fundamental principle of sparing civilian lives.
"Where there is no intended military target and the rockets and mortars are launched into civilian areas, they constitute a deliberate attack against the civilian population," it said.
It also calls for the immediate release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier seized in a Palestinian raid in 2006 and taken to Gaza.
Both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities are criticised for the treatment of their own civilians during the conflict.
Israel's interrogation of political activists and repression of criticism of its activities had "contributed significantly to a political climate in which dissent was not tolerated", it said.
Meanwhile, the alleged "arbitrary arrests" and "extra-judicial executions" of Palestinians by the authorities in both Gaza and the West Bank were also criticised.
Read more of the BBC Report here and here
Philip Weiss has a useful commentary here
