United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, visiting the Gaza Strip, said Israel used "excessive force" during three weeks of fighting in the Palestinian enclave.
Speaking at a press conference in Gaza today at a UN building that was damaged by Israeli fire during the conflict, Ban Ki-Moon said: "I have condemned on the outbreak of the conflict the excessive use of force by Israeli forces in Gaza."
"I have seen only a fraction of the destruction. This is shocking and alarming," Mr Ban said.
"These are heartbreaking scenes I have seen and I am deeply grieved by what I have seen today," he told a news conference held against a backdrop of still smouldering food aid in a UN warehouse set ablaze by Israeli gunfire last Thursday.
Mr Ban called the attack "outrageous" and demanded an inquiry and, if need be, the guilty to be held to account.
Israel began pulling its troops from Gaza after it declared a unilateral truce early January 18th, ending a military operation to stop Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups from shooting rockets into the south of the country.
Hamas later announced its own cease-fire, and no rockets have been fired into Israeli territory from Gaza since yesterday morning.
Israeli police said 849 projectiles were fired during the war. "We are redeploying our forces and will proceed according to an assessment of the situation," Israeli army spokeswoman Major Avital Leibovich said, responding to reports that Israel will try to withdraw completely from Gaza before today's inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.
In Gaza, where more than 1,300 people were killed according to Palestinian medical officials, witnesses said several areas looked like they were hit by an earthquake, with thousands of houses, mosques and other buildings reduced to rubble.
Hamas said 5,000 homes, 16 government buildings and 20 mosques were destroyed and that 20,000 houses were damaged. Israel has said militants hid weapons inside the mosques.
Palestinian militant groups said 112 of their fighters and 180 Hamas policemen were killed. Israel put its dead at 10 soldiers and said three civilians were killed in rocket attacks.
Gaza medical officials said the Palestinian dead included at least 700 civilians. Israel, which accused Hamas of endangering non-combatants by operating in densely populated areas, said hundreds of militants were among the dead.
Israel has rejected accusations by human rights agencies that it has committed war crimes by attacking densely populated urban areas with destructive and toxic munitions. UN Relief and Works Agency Gaza operations chief, Irish national John Ging, asked: “Were they war crimes that resulted in the deaths of the innocent during the conflict? The question has to be answered.”
In Geneva, World Health Organisation head Margaret Chan warned of a looming health crisis for many among the 1.5 million Palestinians living in the sliver of territory wedged between Israel and Egypt.
Ms Chan said she was "deeply concerned" about an interruption of immunisations and other life-saving care in the territory, and of the availability of only 2,000 hospital beds in Gaza.
Saudi Arabia has pledged $1 billion for rebuilding, while the European Union said the bloc's foreign ministers planned to meet in Brussels to discuss humanitarian aid and Israeli demands for the prevention of weapons smuggling to Gaza.
Aid groups have warned of a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, where about 1.5 million people live in an area of 360 square kilometers (144 square miles). Gaza emergency chief Mo'aweya Hassanein told reporters that rescue teams are still searching for survivors and bodies under the rubble of destroyed buildings and that 10 corpses were uncovered yesterday.
Agencies