Human Rights Watch declared yesterday that Israel had committed war crimes during this summer’s Gaza assault, saying it reached that conclusion after investigating three attacks on or near United Nations-run schools.

The group said it investigated the strikes at schools housing displaced Palestinians in three separate locations in the war-battered Gaza Strip, attacks in which at least 45 people were killed.

Based on field research and interviews with witnesses, the New York-based group said no military targets had been apparent in the area of the schools and that some of the attacks were indiscriminate.

“The Israeli military carried out attacks on or near three well-marked schools where it knew hundreds of people were taking shelter, killing and wounding scores of civilians,” HRW special adviser Fred Abrahams said.

“Israel has offered no convincing explanation for these attacks on schools where people had gone for protection.”

In one instance, in an attack on a school in Beit Hanoun on July 24, Israel claimed it had fired mortars toward Hamas fighters in response to anti-tank fire directed at them. HRW has produced witnesses who deny the claims.

On a strike on July 30, the Israeli military again said it was responding to Hamas fire nearby. But HRW said Israel provided no evidence for the claim and “in any event, the use of high-explosive heavy-artillery shells so near a civilian shelter constitutes an indiscriminate attack.”

The schools attacks elicited widespread condemnation, with UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon calling one a “moral outrage and criminal act.” The UN has appointed a commission of inquiry to look into the attacks.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military announced that it had launched its own probe into cases involving Palestinian civilian casualties.

Israel faces the prospect of international war crimes probes and the announcement shifts the legal responsibility of International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda from conducting a probe herself to merely assuring that the Israeli inquiry covers the relevant issues, thus disqualifying the court from proceeding.