UNHRC report head Mary McGowan Davis
UNHRC report head Mary McGowan DavisReuters

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) endorsed Friday afternoon a controversial report accusing both Israel and Hamas of possible war crimes.

In a vote at the Council, 41 member states voted in favor of the resolution adopting the report. Among those voting for were EU countries France, Germany, UK, Ireland and the Netherlands - despite Israeli calls for the EU to vote against the "biased" report.

Five member stated abstained: Ethiopia, Macedonia, Kenya India and Paraguay.

The McGowan Davis report has been heavily criticized by Israel, as well as several military and legal experts, for focusing almost entirely on criticizing Israel, while making only passing mention of abuses by Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Israel's Ambassador to Geneva, where the UNHRC is based, was among the first officials to issue a response.

"Hans Christian Andersen has already said in the past that the emperor has no clothes. Please permit me to take the role of the little child in the story and tell you that this Council has lost its direction," Ambassador Eviatar Manor said.

While saying he has "no interest in relating to the content of the vote," Manor took aim at the Council itself, slamming its "manifest anti-Israeli" agenda, noting that the council has focused more on Israel than on all other UN member states combined.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon echoed his sentiments in a statement issued immediately after the vote.

"The Human Rights Council has once again proven today its irrelevance and detachment from reality," he said. "As the world around us goes up in flames - a serious terrorist attack in Egypt, continued anarchy in Syria, millions of refugees fleeing their homes, the Council continues to condemn Israel."

Nahshon claimed the decision was "the product of Palestinian efforts designed to demonize Israel and tie its hands in its legitimate struggle against the terror of militant Islam."

"Israel is a law-abiding country, whose justice system is respected internationally," he added, noting that the IDF is the party party to last summer's conflict to conduct an internal investigation into its conduct.

In contrast, he pointed to the silence of the UNHRC in the face of continued deadly attacks by Palestinian terrorists against Israeli civilians.

"In the last few days the human rights of Israelis have been trampled on again and again by serious terror attacks, while the Palestinian Authority is silent," he said.

"(Yet) no special session of the Human Rights Council is called, and none of these serious attacks has been condemned."