A government-appointed inquiry found "grave failings" today among Israel's political and military leadership during the 2006 war in Lebanon but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert showed no sign of being ready to resign.
"We found grave failings in the decision-making ... both on the military and political levels," inquiry chairman Eliahu Winograd, a former judge, told a televised news conference held to present the five-member panel's final report. He called the month-long conflict a "great and grave fumble" that ended without clear victory over Hizbullah.
Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gestures during a session of parliament in Jerusalem yesterday
But Mr Olmert, who survived a similarly scathing interim report in April from the Winograd Commission, has made clear he does not plan to quit and earlier on Wednesday he won crucial support from partners in his fractious coalition government.
After Mr Olmert received the report - shortly before it was published - political sources said aides to the prime minister were "satisfied" with its conclusions, including a finding that he used "reasonable judgment" in ordering a final offensive that was one of the most controversial aspects of the war.
Rivals have been quietly jostling for position in case he resigns, possibly triggering a snap election. But though he is unpopular in polls, hampered by graft allegations and has already lost one coalition ally this month over new peace moves toward the Palestinians, Mr Olmert has no obvious challenger.
He also has a powerful backer in US President George W. Bush, whose hopes for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal during his final year in the White House would almost certainly be destroyed if Israel turned inward to fight an early election in which right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu would start as favourite.
"There will be no elections," Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On, a member of Mr Olmert's centrist Kadima party, said before the five-member panel reported. "The prime minister is steadfast in this position. No pressure campaign will change that."
Israel's army chief and defence minister already paid with their jobs last year for what many saw as a debacle against Hizbullah in Lebanon after the guerrillas seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a border raid.
Unlike April's interim report, the final findings focus on the last days of the month-long conflict, when Mr Olmert ordered a costly ground assault even as a UN truce was in the works to end a war that killed 900 Lebanese civilians and 300 fighters.
Opposition politicians and relatives of some of the 159 Israelis killed in the war, most of them soldiers, are planning protests later in the week, which Mr Olmert's rivals hope may push him toward the exit. But public outcry was muted after April's report and subsequent delay has further dampened passions.