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Palestinian human rights groups in Gaza also found 49 Palestinians were shot in the legs in punishment attacks and around 73 were severely beaten, suffering broken arms and legs, from the start of the war in late December until the end of January. Some of the attackers were not identified, but many appeared to be from Hamas.

The accounts corroborate witness testimony reported by the Guardian at the time and appear to show Hamas took advantage of the chaos of the war to exert control over its political and security rivals in Gaza. Other Palestinians have also spoken of a campaign of intimidation against secular and moderate groups in Gaza.

During the Gaza war 18 Palestinians, many suspected of collaborating with Israel, were killed. Most had escaped from Gaza's main prison after it was bombed by Israeli aircraft at the start of the war. A further 14, at least four of whom were in jail at the time, have been killed since the end of the war.

Human Rights Watch said Fatah, the rival, western-supported Palestinian faction that controls the West Bank, had also used "repressive measures" against its Hamas opponents. It said Palestinian human rights groups recorded 31 complaints of torture by the Fatah-led security forces, as well as one death in custody and the arbitrary arrest of two Palestinian television journalists.

"Western governments that support and finance the Fatah authorities in the West Bank have remained publicly silent about the arbitrary arrests and torture against Hamas members and others," said Stork.

Human Rights Watch has also accused Israel of violating international law during the Gaza war, including by what it said was indiscriminate use of weapons such as white phosphorus in densely populated civilian areas.

The group said it found no evidence that Hamas fighters used Palestinian civilians as human shields - a key Israeli claim - in the area at the time of the attacks it researched.

On the same day, at about 7.30am, Israeli artillery shells began falling near the main compound of the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza City, where 700 civilians were sheltering. UN staff made repeated telephone calls to the Israeli military asking them to stop but, at about 10am, six shells hit the compound, three of which contained white phosphorus. The warehouse was hit, causing at least $10m of damage, and it continued to burn for 12 days.The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said at the time that "Hamas fired from the UNRWA site". But the UN has always denied there were any militants in the compound or firing from the compound.In another case, on 17 January, an artillery shell that had already discharged its white phosphorus hit a UN school in Beit Lahiya, where 1,600 civilians were sheltering. It killed two brothers in a classroom and severely injured their mother and cousin.

The source for many of the early reports of civilian casualties was a handful of government doctors in the war zone, who described the scene at makeshift clinics to the international media as the army offensive unfolded. They have since been detained by the Sri Lankan government and there is confusion over their fate. Adams claimed they were being held to prevent information about war crimes getting out.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said Havana should not be readmitted until it made concessions on democracy and human rights, a line echoed by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch which said political prisoners and repression continued under President Raul Castro.

Those arguments were swept away by largely leftist governments who thought the organisation had been beholden to Washington for too long. "The vote to readmit Cuba to the OAS represents an unprecedented assertion of Latin American power in a hemispheric institution long dominated by the US," said Daniel Erikson, an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue thinktank and author of The Cuba Wars.

"The release of CIA memos on interrogation methods by the US department of justice appears to have offered a get-out-of-jail-free card to people involved in torture," Amnesty International said. "Torture is never acceptable and those who conduct it should not escape justice."

The Bush administration lawyers argued in the memos that the techniques did not amount to torture because no serious psychological or physical harm was done. About 10 techniques, with variations, were approved, ranging from waterboarding, which simulates drowning, to sleep deprivation and playing on a detainee's perceived fear of insects.

Hayden and Mukasey, in a jointly written piece in the Wall Street Journal today, declared there was no need to release the memos. "Disclosure of the techniques is likely to be met by faux outrage and is perfectly packaged for media consumption. It will also incur the utter contempt of our enemies."Somehow, it seems unlikely that the people who beheaded Nicholas Berg [the US businessman who was killed in Iraq] and Daniel Pearl [the US journalist killed in Pakistan], and have tortured and slain other American captives, are likely to be shamed into giving up violence by the news that the US will no longer interrupt that sleep cycle of captured terrorists even to help elicit intelligence that could save the lives of its citizens."

One of the memos, dated 2005, said that the CIA had 94 detainees in its custody at the time and had used the approved techniques against 28 of them, and that these amounted to the hard core of prisonersThree of the memos were written by Steven Bradbury, of the US justice department, in response to questions from John Rizzo, a lawyer with the CIA, who wanted to know if the techniques complied with international laws.

Stacy Sullivan, of Human Rights Watch, echoed this: "President Obama said there was nothing to gain 'by laying blame for the past'. But prosecuting those responsible for torture is really about ensuring that such crimes don't happen in the future."

The Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists issued a statement calling on Obama to investigate and prosecute officials who authorised and engaged in torture."Without holding to account the authors of a policy of torture and those executing it, there cannot be a return to the rule of law," said Wilder Tayler, acting secretary-general of the ICJ.

Cramped confinement: Detainees put in uncomfortably small containers. But this was judged to be unsuccessful, as it offered detainees a temporary save haven.

The human-rights group Amnesty International says it believes about 10 people have been killed.

On Friday, US President Barack Obama warned Iran that the "world is watching" events there. He expressed concern at "some of the tenor and tone of the statements that have been made".

A new rally on Saturday would directly challenge an order from Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's spiritual leader and highest authority.