Israeli leader hoping US can prevent his country from being investigated

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met with US lawmakers in the hope that they can ring-fence his country from Palestinian accusations that it committed war crimes during the recent fighting.

Israel has consistently maintained that its military strikes on Gaza, some of which have resulted in civilian deaths, have been in self-defence against rocket attacks from terrorist group Hamas.

However, Palestinian officials are thought to be considering joining the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a bid to have Israel investigated.

Scroll down for video

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approached US lawmakers in a bid to avoid war crimes charges. He's pictured here speaking to the media at the defense ministry in Tel Aviv on Saturday

Meeting: Democrat Steve Israel met with Netanyahu to discuss the Gaza conflict and US-Israeli relations

Netanyahu met with a delegation of US politicians – including Democrat Steve Israel - to discuss ways of keeping the spotlight off its actions in Gaza, according to theNew York Post.

US-Israeli relations were also on the agenda, the paper reported.

Israel said: 'The prime minister asked us to work together to ensure that this strategy of going to the ICC does not succeed.'

Netanyahu told a press conference: 'Israel deeply regrets every civilian casualty. We do not target them. The tragedy of Gaza is that it is ruled by Hamas. They want civilian casualties, they use them as PR fodder.

'Indeed, Hamas has adopted a strategy that uses and sacrifices Gaza's civilians. They fire rockets from schools, mosques, urban neighborhoods, right next to schools, right next to where journalists are staying.'

He then asked: 'Imagine your territory was infiltrated by death squads. What would you do?'

Nick Clegg, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, said he believed Israel has every right to defend itself from rocket attacks by Hamas – but that its operation had 'overstepped the mark'.

He described recent strikes on three UN schools in Gaza as 'outrageous'.

Palestinian officials say nearly 1,900 Palestinians have been killed in the month-long fighting, three-quarters of them civilians, according to the United Nations. Israel says some 900 Palestinian militants were among the dead. Sixty-four Israeli soldiers and three civilians in Israel have also been killed.

One of the triggers for the current round of Israeli-Hamas confrontations was the abduction and killing of three Israeli teens in the West Bank in June, which Israel blamed on Hamas. Israel subsequently carried out a massive ground operation in the West Bank, arresting hundreds of Hamas operatives as part of a manhunt. And in early July, an Arab teenager was abducted and burned alive by Israeli extremists in an apparent revenge attack. Six Jewish Israelis were arrested in that killing. Also, militants in Gaza unleashed barrages of rocket fire on Israel.

Rescue workers search for victims as Palestinians gather around the wreckage of a house, which witnesses said was destroyed in an Israeli air strike that killed at least five people

In a picture taken from the Israel-Gaza border, smoke rises from the coastal side of the Gaza Strip following an Israeli controlled explosion of a tunnel, on August 1

The war started on July 8, when Israel launched airstrikes that it said were aimed at stopping the rocket fire. The operation - dubbed 'Protective Edge' - was expanded on July 17 when Israel sent in ground forces to destroy a network of tunnels it said were used by militants to stage attacks inside Israel.

In details emerging from the fighting, Hamas' military wing said in a statement late Wednesday that 23 of its fighters had been found alive after being trapped for nearly three weeks inside an underground tunnel attacked and sealed in an Israeli strike.

The militants had staged attacks against Israelis before they became trapped. They survived on water from an underground spring and dates. Hamas said bulldozers freed them on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, an appeal to help hundreds of thousands of people who have fled their homes in Gaza is being launched by the Disasters Emergency Committee.

The DEC, which brings together 13 leading UK aid charities in 'times of crisis', said half a million people have been forced from their homes, while up to 1.5 million have no access to water, sanitation or medical care.