JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday condemned a damning UN report on the Gaza war as a kangaroo court, saying it was biased from the start. The UN probe said both Israel and Palestinian groups committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the 22-day war in December-January that Israel launched in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave. The report was a kangaroo court; it was fixed from the start, Netanyahu told Israels Channel 2 television, speaking publicly for the first time on the report. Meanwhile, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said in an interview published Thursday that Iran was not an existential threat to Israel, remarks toned down to ones usually used in regard to arch-foe Tehran. Iran does not constitute an existential threat to Israels existence, the former prime minister said in an interview with the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot daily. Israel is strong and I do not see anyone capable of representing a threat to our existence, he said. At the same time, I think that Iran poses a challenge to Israel and the rest of the world. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said that the Islamic Republic posed the biggest threat to the Jewish state in its 61-year-old existence. Widely considered to be the Middle Easts sole if undeclared nuclear power, Israel suspects Iran of trying to get atomic weapons under the guise of its nuclear programme, a charge that Tehran denies. Israel considers Iran its top enemy after statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Jewish state is doomed to be wiped off the map. Israeli leaders have repeatedly refused to rule out that they could use military action against Irans nuclear facilities. Barak said that right now is the moment for diplomacy and a hardening of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme. It would be better to do both simultaneously. The Israeli defence minister also said the international community should remain firm in the face of North Korea to set an example for Iran. North Korea violates the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in a flagrant manner and is developing missiles that can reach Europe and America, he said. I tell the American administration at its highest levels that the Iranians are looking closely at what is happening with North Korea. If you do not solve this problem, they will draw the conclusions.