Geneva - South African Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu Thursday levelled sharp criticism at Israel over its bombardment two years ago of Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip, which killed 19 Palestinian civilians.

Tutu, in a report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on the incident, accused Israel of a lack of cooperation in the inquiry and demanded it pay compensation to families of those killed in what he said could be classed as a war crime.

The Palestinians were paying the price for the West having - quite legitimate - guilt feelings towards Israel because of the Holocaust, he said.

As a result, not enough pressure was being put on Israel as should be for it to make moves towards a just and lasting peace - while conditions remained shocking for those living in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli ambassador Ahron Leshno Yaar countered in Geneva Thursday that Israel had carried out a complete internal inquiry into the incident and presented the results to the United Nations.

There was, he told the UN Human Rights Council, nothing to be gained from reopening the dossier. The Tutu report was yet another of the many presented to the UN on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

If the Human Rights Council took action on it, then this would only yet another "one-sided" act joining the list of "one-sided resolutions" passed by the council against Israel, doing nothing to help the peace process with the Palestinians. (dpa)