A United Nations human rights investigator criticized Israel and the Palestinians on Tuesday for violating international law in the latest round of violence between the two sides.

John Dugard, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, slammed both the Palestinian rocket fire on southern Israel and Israel's response.

More than 50 people had been killed and 180 wounded in Israel Air Force strikes in Gaza in the past two weeks, many of them civilians, he said.

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Palestinian militants had fired more than 270 rockets into Sderot, killing two Israelis and wounding dozens more.

"The indiscriminate firing of rockets into Sderot violates international humanitarian law," said Dugard in a statement, referring to the Negev town that has borne the brunt of the Qassam fire. Dugard also said that Israel's response to the rockets "fails to distinguish between civilians and combatants and is a disproportionate use of force."

Israel's "extrajudicial killings" were "illegal under international humanitarian law" and seemed to fail to meet even the minimum requirements laid down by Israel's Supreme Court last December, according to the UN envoy.

On Monday, Hamas kept up rocket fire into Israel despite a cease-fire call by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, and Israeli threats to escalate military strikes in the Gaza Strip.

Dugard also said that more than 40 people arrested last year, including more than 30 members of Hamas, "still remain in Israeli custody with no prospect of release or being brought to trial".

"Arrests of this kind are clear acts of collective punishment, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, and undermine the peace process," said Dugard, a South African jurist who has served in the post since 2001.

He called on the so-called Quartet of Mideast peacemakers - the United States, the European Union, Russia and the UN, which meets Wednesday in Berlin - to advance the peace process in a "fair and even-handed manner".

Dugard repeated that the Quartet was ignoring human rights violations by Israel, including military incursions and arrests in the West Bank, new settlements and construction of the separation fence in Palestinian territory, roadblocks, and withholding of taxes.

The Quartet must treat both parties equally and accord equal recognition to both sides, according to the envoy.