UNITED NATIONS - Israeli forces committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity during their assault on the Gaza Strip eight months ago, the head of a UN fact-finding rights mission said Tuesday.
Richard Goldstone told reporters that his four-member probe panel "concluded that actions amounting to war crimes and possibly in some respect crimes against humanity were committed by the Israel Defense Forces."
Israel on Tuesday dismissed the critical UN report.
"Both the mandate of the mission and the resolution establishing it prejudged the outcome of any investigation," the foreign ministry said in its first response to the report.
The ministry said in a statement the mission "gave legitimacy" to democratically elected Hamas.
"Notwithstanding its reservations, Israel will read the report carefully," it said. "Israel is committed to acting fully in accordance with international law and to examining any allegations of wrongdoing by its own forces."
It said the Israeli 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.
The Israeli statement said 23 criminal investigations were still pending.
Under international law, freedom movements are allowed to militarily resist their occupiers.
Israel's war on Gaza killed nearly 1,400 Palestinians, mainly civilians, 447 of them under the age of 18.
Israel, which wants to crush any Palestinian liberation movement, responded to Hamas's win in the elections with sanctions, and almost completely blockaded the impoverished coastal strip after Hamas seized power in 2007, although a ‘lighter’ siege had already existed before.
Human rights groups, both international and Israeli, slammed Israel’s siege of Gaza, branding it “collective punishment.”
A group of international lawyers and human rights activists had also accused Israel of committing “genocide” through its crippling blockade of the Strip.
Gaza is still considered under Israeli occupation as Israel controls air, sea and land access to the Strip.
The Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza's sole border crossing that bypasses Israel, rarely opens as Egypt is under immense US and Israeli pressure to keep the crossing shut.
Fatah has little administrative say in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and has no power in Arab east Jerusalem, both of which were illegally occupied by Israel in 1967.
Israel also currently occupies the Lebanese Shabaa Farms and the Syrian Golan Heights.
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