The United Nations has reprehended Israel for several serious incidents during its three-week Gaza offensive which caused deaths, injuries and damage to UN personnel and property, according to a UN report, whose summary was made available to the press on Tuesday.

The Board of Inquiry, chaired by Ian Martin who was former head of Amnesty International, said it considered attacks on the United Nations by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) "an egregious breach of the inviolability of United Nations premises and a failure to accord the property and assets of the organization immunity from any form of interference."

The report, which was commissioned by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to investigate nine of the most serious incidents, is non-legally binding but recommends that action be taken to prevent future incidents from occurring.

The board's report is officially an internal document so it will not be released in full to the public but a summary was made available to reporters on Tuesday.

In the most lethal incident, the board found that in firing 120mm of high explosive mortar rounds in the vicinity of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Jabalia School, Israel was responsible for the death of 30 to 40, including a 14-year-old boy, who had taken shelter at the school with his family.

In another incident on January 17, the IDF used white phosphorous, according to the board, setting fire to a school where 1,891 people were taking shelter. The majority was able to evacuate to a nearby hospital but two children were killed when minutes later an ordnance shell crashed through the roof.

In a separate incident, the board found Israel "responsible for the deaths of three young men," who had just minutes before left the UNRWA Asma Elementary Co-educational "A" school of Gaza City, which was being used as an emergency shelter for Palestinians affected by the conflict on January 5.

Possibly, the three men were engaged, or about to engage, in military activity, said the report. However, it concluded that the men were most likely going to use toilets in the school's compound.

The IDF did warn civilians of its various attacks through radiobroadcasts and telephone calls, in addition to dropping 980,000 leaflets, which, said the IDF, "will hit and destroy any building or site containing ammunition and weapons."

However, the board noted that the ability for civilians to respond to the threats was limited and criticized the IDF for not warning the UN before such attacks.

According to international rights groups, the war killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, most of whom were civilians. However, that number is disputed by Israel, which says the majority of the dead were militants.

Speaking at a monthly press meeting on Tuesday, Ban said the United Nations will not conduct further inquiries and the possibility of future investigations related to other incidents not mentioned in the report will be decide on a case by case basis.

Ban, who called the report's methodology and findings "completely independent," categorically denied that the report was "watered down," adding that he does "not have any authority to edit or change conclusions on this."

While the report makes no mention of compensation, Ban said he intends to seek reimbursements to damages caused by the IDF and is still in the matter of deciding what concrete "actions should be taken, if any."

The board found that in seven incidents, the UNRWA sustained a loss of over 10.4 million U.S. dollars, while the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) incurred losses of and damage to property totaling an excess of US$750,000.

The government of Israel has expressed key reservations and objections to the report, and intends to react to it, Ban told reporters, but he expressed his faith in Israel's assurances that similar incidents involving the UN will not happen again.

However, on Tuesday, The Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli Foreign Ministry called the report "tendentious" and "patently biased," citing Israel's own investigations of damages to UN premises, which "proved beyond doubt that the (military) did not intentionally fire at the UN installations."