New report by U.N. chief will slam Israel after violent Hamas-led riots in Gaza

"UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has circulated a document that severely criticizes Israel over violence on the Gaza border and singles out Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman for making what are described as "inflammatory" comments, according to a report Sunday...

The document was mandated by UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which passed in December 2016 and focused mainly on demanding an immediate halt to all Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

However the report, which US and Israeli diplomats fought to delay for months, deals mainly with concerns over Gaza, particularly violence along the border over the past several months in which over 130 Palestinian protesters have been killed by Israeli fire.

'Israel has a responsibility to exercise maximum restraint in the use of live fire, and to not use lethal force, except as a last resort against imminent threat of death or serious injury. It must protect its citizens, but it must do so with due respect of international humanitarian law. The killing of children, as well as of clearly identified journalists and medical staffers by security forces during a demonstration are particularly unacceptable,' the report reads, according to US news site Axios, which carried a concurrent item on the UN document.

Israel has said most of those killed were members of terror groups, many of whom were in the midst of carrying out attacks or attempting to breach or damage the fence. Hamas has acknowledged that dozens of the dead were its members. The IDF has repeatedly accused Hamas of trying to carry out terror attacks under the cover of the protests..."