ISRAEL stood accused yesterday of deliberately blocking investigators trying to probe alleged war crimes during its 43-day assault on the embattled Gaza Strip.

NGOs Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned the authorities in Tel Aviv for barring researchers from the seven by 31-mile sliver of land where 1.8 million people have been trapped in a weeks-long reign of terror.

HRW said it had officially been refused because it wasn’t on a registered list of organisations allowed in.