by Our Foreign Desk

PALESTINIAN resistance group Hamas rejected a long-awaited United Nations report on the 2014 Israeli onslaught against Gaza yesterday, denying that its fighters committed war crimes.

The report sought to equate the deeds of Gaza’s defenders with those of the zionist aggressor.

The commission claimed to have gathered “substantial information pointing to serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law” by both sides.

In some cases, it added, these violations may amount to war crimes.

“The extent of the devastation and human suffering in Gaza was unprecedented and will impact generations to come,” said commission chair Mary McGowan Davis.

“There is also ongoing fear in Israel among communities who come under regular threat.”

More than 2,200 Palestinians, mainly civilians, were killed during the Israeli bombardment by land, sea and air of the heavily populated Gaza Strip, while 73 people, all but six of whom were soldiers, died on the Israeli side.

Hamas official Ghazi Hamad said that its rockets and mortars had been aimed at Israeli military sites, not at civilians.

He criticised UN investigators for striking a false balance between victims and killers.

Palestinians accuse Israel of violating the rules of war by failing to give adequate warning to civilians, using disproportionate force and not distinguishing between civilians and combatants.

Tel Aviv did not wait for publication of the report before denouncing it as biased.

The commission said that Israel had launched 6,000 air strikes and fired 50,000 tank and artillery shells, as against 4,881 rockets and 1,753 mortars launched by the Gaza resistance.