United Nations:
Israeli forces committed "war crimes" and violated human rights during its military assault in Gaza that lasted a month and claimed over 1400 lives, a UN fact finding mission into the conflict has found.
Justice Richard Goldstone, head of the Mission, called for the Security Council to ask Israel to conduct domestic prosecutions for the violations listed in the report.
"There was strong evidence to establish that numerous serious violations of international law both humanitarian law and human rights law were committed by Israel during the military operations in Gaza," he said.
"... Actions amounting to war crimes and possibly in some respects crimes against humanity were committed by Israel defense force," concluded Goldstone, former judge of the South African Constitutional Court and former prosecutor of the international criminal tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia.
The UN report examines the impact of the attacks on the infrastructure, economy and food supply of Gaza and finds that hundred of factories were bombed, egg production destroyed, and agriculture fields bulldozed during the conflict.
Goldstone said the assault had nothing to do with the purpose, which Israel gave for the military operation namely to stop the firing of rockets and mortars.
The mission also concluded that Palestinian armed groups too committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in repeated launching of rockets and mortars into south Israel.