NEW YORK, Jan 27: An impartial international investigation into allegations of serious violations of the laws of war by Israel and Hamas during the recent fighting in Gaza is essential to establish key facts and to recommend mechanisms for holding violators accountable and providing compensation to victims, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

The HRW renewed its call for establishment of an independent, international commission of inquiry and said that the Security Council or UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should urgently take necessary steps to achieve this.

“The Security Council and the secretary-general should both work to establish an independent investigation into alleged violations by both sides,” said Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. “Since Human Rights Watch first made this call, our on-the-ground investigations have shown that the need for such a comprehensive inquiry is all the more apparent and pressing.”

On January 12, the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva voted to dispatch an international fact-finding mission to investigate alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by Israel, but not alleged violations by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups. Leading UN officials have called for an investigation specifically into Israeli attacks on UN schools and headquarters in Gaza.

Human Rights Watch said that Israel’s poor record of investigating and prosecuting serious violations by its forces, and the absence of any such effort by Hamas or other Palestinian groups, made it essential that an inquiry be an independent international effort.

Meanwhile, a UN official said on Tuesday that thousands of Gazans remained homeless and hospitals still had a large number of intensive care patients over a week after a ceasefire ended Israel’s devastating three-week offensive. They called for immediate unhindered humanitarian access to the Strip’s 1.5 million inhabitants.