GENEVA: A United Nations report said this week that Israel's shelling of the Gaza village of Beit Hanoun in November 2006 that left 19 Palestinian civilians martyred may constitute a war crime and the victims should receive compensation.

"In the absence of a well-founded explanation from the Israeli military... the mission must conclude that there is a possibility that the shelling of Beit Hanoun constituted a war crime," said the report of a fact-finding mission headed by South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu.

The former South African archbishop and anti-apartheid activist was mandated by the UN Human Rights Council in November 2006 to investigate the incident but only managed to visit Gaza via Egypt in May this year after the Israelis refused three previous attempts to access the coastal strip via their territory.

Following an internal investigation, Israel concluded that shelling the civilians' homes was "a rare and grave technical error of the artillery radar system," and announced in February that no charges would be brought against Israeli forces involved in the incident.

But Tutu's report said that the "Israeli response of a largely secret internal military investigation is absolutely unacceptable from both legal and moral points of view."

"The mission recommends that the State of Israel pay victims adequate compensation without delay," it added.