TEL AVIV: An Israeli activist who gave evidence to a UN commission investigating Israel’s winer offensive in the Gaza Strip accused the head of the commission yesterday of sleeping during his testimony.

“I was flown to testify in front of the committee at the UN headquarters in Geneva and during my testimony, which included raw video footage of children running from rocket fire, Richard Goldstone fell asleep,” alleged Noam Bedein in a statement sent to mediapersons.

Bedein, who heads the Sderot Media Centre, an NGO seeking to highlight the plight of residents of the Israeli town adjacent to the Gaza Strip which has borne the brunt of Palestinian rocket attacks, said the Goldstone commission

was “a sham of an investigation”.

The commission report, released on Tuesday ,

concluded that Israel and Palestinian militant groups likely committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.

It said the Israeli military operation, launched Dec 27 last year, was “directed at the people of Gaza as a whole” to “punish” the population and that the army failed to investigate alleged violations properly. It also said that Palestinian rocket fire into southern Israel, which Israel said was the reason for launching its offensive, constituted “war crimes and may amount to crimes against humanity” as the militants failed to distinguish between civilians and soldiers.