The Israeli Army today closed an internal investigation into war crimes allegedly committed during its Gaza invasion within a fortnight, concluding that soldiers had "purposely exaggerated" their accounts.

The military dismissed as hearsay the military testimonies that wrongful shootings had taken place, and that a culture of disregard for civilians' lives was encouraged during the invasion.

Human rights groups criticised the conclusions as hasty and called for an independent inquiry into the conflict with the Islamist group Hamas, which runs the territory.

The Army's investigation was launched after Israeli soldiers made a series of allegations at a closed-door meeting held at a military school.

One case involved the killing of an elderly woman by a rooftop sniper and the second described a sniper fatally shooting a mother and two children who had entered a no-go zone.

The accounts, published widely in the Israeli media, set off a round of soul-searching within Israel, where the Army is an entrenched part of a society and teenagers of both sexes are conscripted at 18 years old.

Closing the investigation, the Army’s chief prosecutor said that no evidence had been presented by the soldiers, and accused them of harming Israel’s international image.

“It will be difficult to evaluate the damage done to the image and morals of the Israel Defence Forces and its soldiers ... in Israel and the world,” Brigadier General Avichai Mendelblit said.

Israel launched its three-week operation last December to halt eight years of rocket attacks on border towns which it accused Hamas and affiliated groups of carrying out.

After a week of aerial bombardments, the military launched a two-week ground offensive. The Palestinians claim that more than 1,400 were killed, including more than 900 civilians. Israel has said the toll was lower, and the “vast majority" of the dead were affiliated to Hamas.

In announcing its findings, the Army said the soldiers’ testimonies claiming disregard for human life “were purposely exaggerated and made extreme, in order to make a point".

In the case of the elderly woman allegedly shot by a sniper, the soldier “was only repeating a rumour he had heard" that she was gunned down without provocation, it added, claiming she had disobeyed orders not to advance on the Army.

Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister, said the investigation showed that Israel possesses “the most moral army in the world.”

However, Danny Zamir, the director of the Rabin pre-military academy which carried out the original interviews with soldiers, said the Army still needed to deal with “the whole way that we and our comrades ... treated .. property, houses, holy books".

Human rights groups accused the military of carrying out a biased and hasty inquiry, with Human Rights Watch saying that it was investigating a number of cases in which civilians came under fire while trying to leave the war zone, adding that it had six separate cases involving the deaths of 10 Palestinians.

“I don’t believe there was a policy to shoot at civilians,” Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher, said. “But even the cases of miscommunication must be thoroughly investigated because we have the outlines of a pattern.”

The report comes as the hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu today prepared to unveil his long-awaited coalition government, comprised mainly of right-wing parties but also involving the centre-left Labour Party.

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