Israel "punished and terrorized" civilians in Gaza in a disproportionate attack in its three-week war on the territory earlier this year, a United Nations report has found.
Judge Richard Goldstone, who led the inquiry, said he found evidence Israel targeted civilians and used excessive force in the assault, which was launched on December 27.
"The mission concluded that actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly in some respects crimes against humanity, were committed by the Israel Defense Force," Goldstone, a former South African justice, said.
More than 1,400 Palestinians - about a third of them women and children - were killed in the war.
Sharp criticism
Goldstone's report, which came at the end of a six-month inquiry and will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council later this month, said Israel deliberately attacked civilians, failed to take precautions to minimize loss of civilian life and cited strong evidence that Israeli forces committed "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions.
He said: "In the months since the end of the war, various rights groups both domestic and international have provided evidence of Israel’s war crimes."
He said the evidence included accounts of "the shooting of civilians holding white flags ... the deliberate and unjustifiable targeting of UN shelters ... and the killing of over 300 children whilst the Israeli Army had at their disposal the most precise weaponry in the world".
Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros, reporting from Gaza, said: "The theme that runs through this new UN report is the idea of excessive force being used [by Israel] and deliberate targeting of civilians.
"There was nothing to warn civilians that there were incoming rockets.
'Israeli war crimes'
"The Israelis say they provided leaflets and made thousands of calls to Gazan citizens, but after they called them and dropped leaflets, they didn't give them any option of where to go.
"Even the United Nations shelter was hit."
The report said there were "numerous instances of deliberate attacks on civilians" and civilian objects in Gaza by Israel.
Its firing of white phosphorous shells and the use of high explosive artillery shells were listed as "violations of humanitarian law".
The investigators recommended that the UN Security Council should call on Israel and the Palestinian authorities to launch their own credible investigations into the conflict within three months.
If either side failed to do that, the council should refer the matter to the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor in The Hague within six months, they added.
Rejection 'surprising'
Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, told Al Jazeera: "This report is further evidence Israel committed war crimes during its war on Gaza, and we call on the international community to bring Israeli war criminals to trial."
Israel which had refused to cooperate with the investigation, claimed the UN Human Rights Council that ordered it was biased against Israel, allegations which Goldstone and the three other members of the team have denied.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli government, said the army did not target civilians during its campaign against Hamas, which governs the Palestinian territory.
"Israel did not target civilians. The opposite is true - we made every effort not to see the civilian population caught up in the crossfire," he told Al Jazeera.
Israel said its military had opened more than 100 inquiries into allegations of alleged wrongdoing by its forces, but had closed most of them because the accusations were found to be baseless.
Goldstone told Al Jazeera: "I'm surprised that Israel has so speedily read a 575-page report and so quickly rejected it."
Goldstone, the former chief prosecutor of the international courts for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, headed the fact-finding mission which conducted dozens of interviews and investigations.
PHOTO CAPTION
Palestinian civilians and medics run to safety during an Israeli strike over a UN school in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip.
Source: Al-Jazeera.net