JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel demanded on Sunday the dissolution of a United Nations panel investigating its 2021 war with Palestinian militants, denouncing the comments of one of its members as anti-Semitic. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid referred to the statements of Melon Kothari, a member of the UN Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry, in an interview. "We are very disappointed with social media that it largely controls, whether it's the Jewish lobby or certain NGOs. A lot of money is being spent trying to discredit us," Kothari said in a podcast for Munduis on July 25. Israel boycotted the investigation and prevented the commission's investigators from entering. She said the commission's partial findings in June were the latest in a series of biased reports. "The fight against anti-Semitism cannot be done with words alone, it also requires action. This is the time for action. It is time to dissolve the commission...This commission not only supports anti-Semitism, it nurtures it," Lapid said. A UN spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But Munduwis published a message from the committee's chairwoman, Navi Pillay, in which she said Kothari's comments were intentionally taken out of context. The United States and other Western countries, including Germany, Britain and Austria, condemned Kothari's remarks as anti-Semitic. "These unacceptable comments unfortunately compound our deep concerns about the nature and scope of the Commission of Inquiry's work and the HRC's disproportionate and biased treatment of Israel," US envoy to the Human Rights Council Michelle Taylor said on Twitter. Although the commission was set up to investigate the 11-day Gaza war in May 2021, the mandate of the investigation includes alleged human rights violations before and after that as well as to investigate the root causes of the tension. At least 250 Palestinians and 13 people in Israel were killed in the intense fighting, which has seen Gaza militants launch rockets at Israeli cities and Israel launch air strikes on the coastal enclave.