UN investigator 'shocked' by scale of destruction in Gaza

The head of a United Nations team investigating possible war crimes by Israel and Hamas during the Gaza war said Thursday he had been shocked by the scale of the destruction in the Palestinian areas.

South African Judge Richard Goldstone spoke at the end of a four-day fact-finding trip to Gaza, during which his 15-member team interviewed dozens of witnesses and visited sites damaged in Israel's three-week offensive against Hamas that ended Jan. 18.

His team hoped to visit Israel and the West Bank as well, but Israel has refused to cooperate, citing alleged anti-Israel bias by the U.N. Human Rights Council, the probe's sponsor.

Goldstone said he hoped Israel's refusal would not weaken the final report, due in early September, adding that it would not keep the team from investigating allegations against both sides.

"If we haven't dealt with facts that Israel would like us to deal with, I think we can hardly be blamed for that," he said.

The team announced Thursday that it will hold public hearings with the war's victims later this month in Gaza and Geneva.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said he did not anticipate achange in Israel's stand toward the investigation or the Human Right Council, which has a record of criticizing Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians.

"They should call us the day the Human Rights Council decides on a human rights inquiry on some other place around the globe," he said, mentioning Darfur and Sri Lanka. "After that, we may start to be convinced that they are not singling out Israel."

Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights groups began calling for war crimes investigations soon after the 22-day war ended in January.

Israeli launched the war to stop eight years of Hamas rocket fire on Israeli towns.

Palestinian human rights groups say more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed, most of them civilians. Israel says around 1,100 Gazans were killed and that most were militants. Thirteen Israelis were also killed, three of them civilians.

Goldstone refused to comment on the ongoing investigation's content. But human rights groups have said Israel used disproportionate force and failed to protect civilians. They say Hamas fought from civilian areas and is suspected of having used human shields - all of which can be violations of international law.

Goldstone, who previously investigated war crimes in Rwanda and the formerYugoslavia, said the public hearings in Gaza and Geneva later this month would allow the voices and the faces of victims to be seen and heard by the whole international community.

He said both Palestinians and Israelis would be invited to speak in Geneva.