Israel, Palestinians may be guilty of war crimes, U.N. panel says

JERUSALEM — A U.N. investigation on Monday accused both Israel and Hamas militants of committing possible war crimes in last summer’s Gaza war, finding that Israeli air strikes on residential buildings caused many civilian deaths and suggesting Israeli leaders knowingly endangered them.

The report, which Israel rejected as biased, further strained its already troubled relations with the world body and could provide new ammunition in a preliminary investigation of Israel at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The war started July 8, after a chain of events stemming from the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank by Hamas militants and the kidnapping of a Palestinian teenager who was burned to death by Jewish extremists in a revenge attack.

Israel has blamed Hamas for the civilian casualties, saying the group used schools, mosques and residential areas for cover and noting that Hamas repeatedly fired rockets from populated areas.

The commission’s report also included tough criticism of Hamas, the Islamic militant group that has ruled Gaza since 2007, saying the indiscriminate nature of its rocket attacks and the deliberate targeting of civilians “may amount to a war crime.”