(Israel Hayom via JNS) The U.S. State Department has issued a scathing rebuke of a United Nations Human Rights Council report on the May 2021 Gaza conflict that blamed Israel’s “perpetual occupation” of Palestinian areas for the flare-up.

The State Department reiterated its opposition to the “open-ended and vaguely defined nature” of the UNHRC’s Commission of Inquiry and said it “represents a one-sided, biased approach that does nothing to advance the prospects for peace” between Israelis and Palestinians.

“Israel is the only country subject to a standing agenda item at the HRC and has received disproportionate focus at the HRC compared to human rights situations elsewhere in the world,” the State Department added.

“While no country is above scrutiny, the existence of this [Commission of Inquiry] in its current form is a continuation of a longstanding pattern of unfairly singling out Israel. We re-engaged with and later re-joined the HRC in part to be in a better position to address its flaws, including this one, and we will continue to seek reforms,” it continued.

The commission, headed by former U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay, is the first to have an “ongoing” mandate from the U.N. rights body. Critics allege that permanent scrutiny testifies to an anti-Israel bias in the 47-member-state council and other U.N. bodies.

The United States quit the UNHRC in 2018 under former President Donald Trump over what it described as its “chronic bias” against Israel, and only fully rejoined this year.

Israel slammed the report as well, rejecting it as heavily biased in favor of the Palestinians and as “part and parcel of the witch hunt carried out by the Human Rights Council against Israel.”