( CNN ) -- Palestinians on Tuesday urged the United Nations to `` punish '' Israel as a scathing U.N. report accused the nation of war crimes during its military offensive in Gaza last winter . A Palestinian boy kicks a football outside damaged homes in northern Gaza in January 2009 . But Israel rejected the investigation as one-sided and shameful . The report accused Israel of committing `` actions amounting to war crimes , possibly crimes against humanity '' during its military incursion into Gaza from December 27 to January 18 . Richard Goldstone , the South African judge who headed the U.N. investigation into the conflict , demanded that someone be held responsible for crimes committed during it . `` The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point , '' Goldstone said Tuesday . `` This is the time of action . '' He formally presented the report to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva , Switzerland on Tuesday . It claims that the Israeli Defense Forces `` failed to take feasible precautions required by international law to avoid or minimize loss of civilian life , injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects . '' Ibrahim Khraishi , the Palestinian Authority 's ambassador to the United Nations , called the report professional and unbiased . `` This report should not be another report to just document and archive , '' said Khraishi . `` My people will not forgive this council if they let these criminals go unpunished . '' But Israel 's ambassador to the United Nations , Aharon Leshno-Yaar , questioned the report in strong language Tuesday , calling it one-sided and shameful . `` This report is based on carefully picked incidents , cherry-picked for political effect , '' Leshno-Yaar said . `` The authors of this fact-finding report had little thought about finding facts . '' Israel did not cooperate in the U.N. investigation , calling it flawed and biased . There is an ongoing dispute about the number of people killed in the three-week military offensive which Israel called Operation Cast Lead . The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights put the death toll at 1,419 and said that 1,167 of those were `` non-combatants . '' The Israeli military released its own figures earlier this year , claiming 1,166 people were killed and that 60 percent of those were `` terror operatives . '' A separate report released earlier this month by Israeli human rights organization B'tselem put the death toll at 1,387 , claiming that more than half of those killed were civilians . Israel has said it `` had both a right and an obligation to take military action against Hamas in Gaza to stop Hamas ' almost incessant rocket and mortar attacks upon thousands of Israeli civilians and its other acts of terrorism . '' Hamas is the militant Palestinian movement which governs Gaza . It rejects Israel 's right to exist . The U.N. report said Israel fired the chemical agent white phosphorus in civilian areas , intentionally fired upon hospitals using high-explosive artillery shells , and failed to provide effective warnings to civilians or U.N. workers before attacks , all of which can be war crimes . It also claims that Israel used Palestinian civilians as human shields and deliberately attacked Palestinian food supplies in Gaza . The report recommends that the U.N. Security Council require the government of Israel to launch appropriate independent investigations into the findings of the report within three months . The findings also recommend that the alleged Israeli war crimes be explored by the International Criminal Court . Israel has launched a number of its own investigations into the conflict . The findings also call on Palestinian leadership to investigate alleged war crimes , for militants to respect humanitarian law , and for the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit , who was kidnapped by Palestinian militants in 2006 , on humanitarian grounds . Representatives from Russia , Cuba and Egypt applauded the Goldstone report . The U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council , Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner , said some of the recommendations in the report were `` deeply flawed '' and called for Israel and Palestinian authorities to be allowed to finish conducting their own investigations before passing judgment . A spokeswoman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said the Human Rights Council could draft a resolution on the issue by Friday . The group that prepared the report is called the U.N . Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict . Its 500-plus page report was released earlier this month and presented formally on Tuesday . CNN 's Kevin Flower contributed to this report .
U.N. group presents scathing report on Israel 's conduct during Israel offensive . Palestinian urge U.N. to address alleged crimes ; Israel condemns report . Report accuses Gaza of `` actions amounting to war crimes '' during offensive . Report finds Palestinians militants also committed war crimes .