The United Nations report into Israel's recent massive military operation in the Gaza Strip that was published on Tuesday makes serious allegations about Israel's modus operandi.

Since its surprise publication earlier than originally planned, Israeli spin doctors have attempted to counter the impact of the document with a public-relations campaign, but so far that effort does not appear to have offset the impact of the findings to any great deal.

The inquiry into events in and around the Palestinian enclave, in which at least 1,100 Palestinians armed and unarmed were killed, was ordered by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

"It concluded there is evidence indicating serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict, and that Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity," the council said in a statement that accompanied the publication of the report.

Israel always opposed inquiry

When the investigation was first mooted by the council, Israel opposed the idea, suggesting it would hardly be an independent inquiry. Israel believes the council as an institution bears grudges against individual member states of the United Nations and maintains much of its work cannot be trusted.

Over the last two days Israel has been as public as possible in questioning the impartiality of the investigating panel, which was headed by the highly experienced South-African war-crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone.

Israeli government ministers and spokespeople have appeared in the media wherever possible to defend the reasons Israel launched its attack on Gaza in the first place, attempting to point to what they say was Israel's "softly-softly" approach to the fighting, how the country tried to prevent civilian casualties in Gaza, how the investigating commission did not do its job properly and how at least one member of the commission had already publicly expressed her outrage at Israel's tactics prior to being appointed to the panel.

Since publication, Goldstone has given several interviews, in each of which he criticized Israel for responding too quickly to the report, without having fully taken in its 574 pages, which the council said "contains detailed analysis of 36 specific incidents in Gaza, as well as a number of others in the West Bank and Israel."

"The mission conducted 188 individual interviews, reviewed more10,000 pages of documentation, and viewed some 1,200 photographs, including satellite imagery, as well as 30 videos. The mission heard 38 testimonies during two separate public hearings held in Gaza and Geneva," added the council.

In Israel's initial response salvo, it said "the Goldstone Mission was politically motivated... the mandate of the mission remained unchanged... the mission was wholly unbalanced in its proceedings... and the neutrality of the UN Human Rights Council is more than questionable."

In urging leading Jewish organizations in the United States to lobby against the report, Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said in a statement that "the Goldstone report is a dangerous attempt to harm the principle of self-defense by democratic states and provides legitimacy to terrorism."

Israel's poor PR performance

Dr. Eli Avraham of the University of Haifa in northern Israel is the author of Media Strategies for Marketing Places in Crisis. In his work, he examined how countries cope with negative images. His basic thesis is that there are three strategies for dealing with the problem.

The first is to deal with the source of the message, then to consider the message itself and the correct response, and then to deal with the audience, or, as Avraham puts it, "to touch its heart."

While Israel has attempted to tackle these issues to some extent, it has fallen well short of what is needed, he told Xinhua on Thursday.

"Israel has a problem with crisis communication. They could predict what is likely to happen but they don't do it. They don't plan their crisis public relation (PR)," said Avraham.

Yigal Palmor is directly in the firing line when it comes to defending Israel. As the Foreign Ministry's senior spokesman, he has been working over the last 48 hours to issue statements explaining the Israeli position.

"It's still early to say, but we have some very encouraging responses from a number of democratic governments. They see beyond the headlines. They see the imminent danger this report presents to their own countries and their defense against terror," said Palmor.