Geneva: Israel should investigate all alleged violations committed by its forces during three recent wars in Gaza and ensure military commanders are brought to justice for any crimes, a UN human rights watchdog said on Thursday.

A panel of independent experts urged Israel to halt construction of Jewish colonies in the West Bank, stop confiscating land for their expansion, prevent violence against Palestinians and take measures to withdraw all colonists.

Punitive demolitions of Palestinian and Bedouin homes in the West Bank and Israeli Negev desert, and forced evictions and transfers of these populations should be halted, they said.

The UN Human Rights Committee, chaired by British expert Sir Nigel Rodley, issued its conclusions and recommendations after examining Israel’s compliance with an international treaty on civil and political rights.

Israel’s latest land and aerial attacks on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in July-August caused a “disproportionate number of casualties among civilians, including children”, the panel said.

More than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed during the 50-day Israeli assault. “(Israel) should ensure that all human rights violations committed during its military operations in the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009, 2012 and 2014 are thoroughly, effectively, independently and impartially investigated, that perpetrators, including, in particular, persons in positions of command are prosecuted and sanctioned...,” the committee of 18 experts said.

The UN experts reiterated that Israel’s obligations to uphold the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also applied to the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, in line with a ruling by the International Court of Justice.

The UN panel said colony construction had “more than doubled” since 2010 and said this had to stop.

Successive Israeli governments have said major colony blocs, deemed illegal under international law, will remain part of Israel in any negotiated deal with the Palestinians and have shrugged off repeated, widespread criticism of their expansion.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged on Monday to fast-track plans for 1,000 new colonist homes in Israel-occupied east Jerusalem, which Palestinians seek as the capital of a future state which would include the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The UN panel also called for an end to Israel’s practice of holding Palestinians in administrative detention -- or detention without trial -- and voiced concern at the “fact that in many cases the detention order is based on secret evidence”.

Israeli authorities say administrative detention is used in security-related cases and helps to protect confidential sources from exposure in court.