Amnesty accuses Israel of possible crimes against humanity

“They carried out a series of disproportionate or otherwise indiscriminate attacks, which they have completely failed to investigate independently”, he said in a statement.

“This report presents an urgent call for justice that must not be ignored”.

The investigation used advanced techniques, including analysis of shadows and smoke plumes, as well as testimony from Palestinian civilians.

Using interviews, video footage, photographs and other evidence the researchers pieced together a timeline of events concluding that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) “Hannibal Directive” had been enacted.

The Israeli military declared Lt Goldin dead a day after his capture.

Under the directive, Israeli forces can respond to the capture of a soldier with intense firepower which some analysts have claimed aim to kill the soldier rather than let them fall alive into enemy hands.

Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty global, described a “relentless and massive bombardment of residential areas of Rafah”, carried out “without distinction between civilians and military targets”.

In an interview with Haaretz earlier this year, Military Advocate General Maj. According to Amnesty, “the systematic and apparently deliberate nature of the air and ground attack on Rafah, which killed at least 135 civilians, may also amount to crimes against humanity”.

“There is consequently strong evidence that many such attacks in Rafah between 1 and 4 August were serious violations of global humanitarian law and constituted grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention or other war crimes”, according to the report.

Hamas, the Islamic militant group which rules Gaza, welcomed the report and the group’s spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, said the ICC should take “punitive measures” against Israel. It said 75 children were among those killed.

An IDF report from 1 August claimed the 72-hour ceasefire it agreed to had been violated by Hamas and it had responded proportionately.

Israel says it launched the offensive on Gaza to put an end to rocket fire and remove the threat of attacks by militants tunnelling under the border.

“During these clashes, a soldier may have been kidnapped by the terrorist organisation”.

But the Foreign Ministry dismissed the report from the human rights organization which it said has an obsession and bias regarding Israel, saying that there were problems with the report’s methodologies, facts, legal analysis and conclusions, and adding that it created the impression that “the IDF was fighting against itself”.

Amnesty said it had submitted a list of detailed questions to the Israeli authorities concerning the report but had received no response.

The Israeli Government published its own report on the 2014 conflict which claimed that Hamas, and not its own forces, violated worldwide law.

But it has been ineffective and essentially barred from operating in Gaza, leaving Hamas in charge of the impoverished coastal enclave which is under a strict Israeli blockade.

Amnesty global has been accused of “compulsive obsessiveness” when it comes to Israel, after a new report out this week was branded “fundamentally flawed” by the Israeli embassy in London.

Over 2,160 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed – and some 11,000 injured – during the offensive, which finally ended with a cease-fire deal signed in August.