The Israeli Foreign Ministry said it totally rejected the resolution, adding the entire purpose of the council was "not to investigate the truth but to compromise Israel's right to self-defence and to single out the Jewish state for demonisation".

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki welcomed the UN decision.

“The Human Rights Council's formation of an international committee of investigation is a step towards doing justice to the Palestinian people,” he said in a statement. He urged speedy implementation "to stop Israeli war crimes".

The special session of the Human Rights Council was convened after the bloodiest day for Palestinians in years on Monday, when 60 were killed by Israeli gunfire during demonstrations that Israel said included attempts to breach its frontier fence.

"Nobody has been made safer by the horrific events of the past week," UN human rights chief Zeid Raad al-Hussein said as he opened the debate.

Israeli forces had killed 106 Palestinians, including 15 children, since March 30, he said. More than 12,000 were injured, at least 3500 by live ammunition. Israel was an occupying power under international law, obliged to protect the people of Gaza and ensure their welfare, he said.

"But they are, in essence, caged in a toxic slum from birth to death; deprived of dignity; dehumanised by the Israeli authorities to such a point it appears officials do not even consider that these men and women have a right, as well as every reason, to protest."

Israel says the deaths took place in protests organised by Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, which intentionally provoked the violence, an accusation Hamas denies.

Israel and the United States complain that the Human Rights Council, made up of 47 states chosen by the UN General Assembly, has a permanent anti-Israel bias.

The US has stood by Israel during the past week's violence, which coincided with the opening of a new US embassy in Jerusalem. American charge d'affaires Theodore Allegra said the Council was ignoring the real culprit: Hamas.

"The one-sided action proposed by the council today only further shows that the Human Rights Council is indeed a broken body," he said.

Two million people live in Gaza, most of them stateless descendants of refugees from homes in what is now Israel at its founding in 1948.

The territory has been run by Hamas since 2007, during which time the sides have fought three wars. Hamas denies Israel's right to exist.

Israel and Egypt, on the other side of Gaza, maintain a blockade of Gaza for security reasons, which the United Nations says has led to the collapse of Gaza's economy.

Reuters