There is evidence that both Israeli and Palestinian forces committed war crimes in the recent Gaza conflict, the official UN report says.The report criticises Israel for using "disproportionate force" and "collective punishment" during the three-week attack ending January 2009.
It also condemned Palestinian rocket attacks, which sparked the offensive.
Palestinians and human rights groups say more than 1,400 Gazans were killed, but Israel puts the figure at 1,166.
Israel, which had refused to co-operate with the UN fact-finding team, said the report was "clearly one-sided".
It reiterated that it was "committed to acting fully in accordance with international law and to examining any allegations of wrongdoing by its forces".
'Collective punishment'
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 report accuses Israel of imposing "a blockade which amounted to collective punishment" in the lead-up to the conflict.
It "concludes that the Israeli military operation was directed at the people of Gaza as a whole, in furtherance of an overall and continuing policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population, and in a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed at the civilian population," said the UN statement.
The report found there was also evidence that Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity in their repeated rockets and mortars attacks on Israel.
Israel launched the assault on Gaza in an attempt to stop the rocket fire from the enclave.
The 574-page document recommends that authorities in both Israel and Gaza be required to investigate the allegations and report to the UN Security Council within six months. The full report - which is based on 188 interviews, more than 10,000 pages of documentation and 1,200 photographs - will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council at the end of this month.
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