Ehud Olmert led Israel into last year’s war in Lebanon “without a second thought” despite the lack of a military plan, an inquiry concluded yesterday — dealing a severe blow to the Prime Minister’s chances of survival.

The findings, in surprisingly harsh language, fuelled a barrage of calls for him to resign, but Mr Olmert appeared unmoved. He promised to follow the report’s recommendations, fix any failures and continue to lead the country.

“I am not resigning. The last thing this country needs is elections,” Mr Olmert said after meeting officials from his Kadima party last night.

His supporters noted that the Winograd Commission stopped short of calling on him to step down but his detractors predict an unprecedented public backlash, which the embattled Prime Minister would find difficult to survive.

Though parts of the panel’s findings were leaked to the Israeli media over the weekend, the report’s scathing tone caught observers by surprise.

Eliyahu Winograd, the commission’s chairman, told a packed news conference that Mr Olmert’s decision to declare war against Hezbollah guerrillas without a practical plan showed “a severe failure in judgment, responsibility and caution”.

He dismissed the army’s overall mission as doomed from the start. The military’s attempt to free two Israeli soldiers seized by Hezbollah on July 12 and destroy the militant group was “overambitious and not feasible”, he said.

“The Prime Minister made up his mind hastily, despite the fact that no detailed military plan was submitted to him and without asking for one,” Mr Winograd said.

The 171-page report criticised Amir Peretz, Israel’s Defence Minister, for lack of military experience and Dan Halutz, the army chief of staff. Mr Halutz has since resigned.

Mr Peretz said that he had no intention of resigning but he is likely to lose the leadership of the Labour Party in primaries next month, forcing him out of his post. Mr Olmert was the subject of the report’s most serious criticism since he “bears supreme and comprehensive responsibility for the decisions of his Government and the army”.

The report is seen as crucial to the Prime Minister’s political fate. His Government has been plagued by political scandals and punished with record-low approval ratings of 2 per cent.

Support for Mr Olmert has eroded since the war, which most Israelis consider a failure. More than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 158 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed in the 34-day conflict. The army’s failure to stop Hezbollah rocket fire and return the missing soldiers is regarded as an embarrassment to the country. Soldiers who returned from battle also complained of poor training, conflicting orders and a lack of equipment.

After receiving the Winograd report Mr Olmert pledged to “act immediately to learn everything necessary in order to learn the lessons, to correct the failures and ensure that in every possible future threat facing the state of Israel the failures and the defects that you point to will be remedied”.

However, opposition politicians from the Left and Right stepped up their calls on him to resign, saying that the country was facing a political crisis of unprecedented proportions.

A public rally is planned for Thursday in Tel Aviv, aimed at forcing the Government to step down. Organised under the banner “You’ve failed, Go home”, the protest coalition consists of reservists, parents of soldiers killed in the war and representatives of border communities and other activists. “We know enough from Winograd to say that the only way to fix this is for the Government to resign immediately,” said Uzi Dayan, a former national security adviser and founder of the protest group, the Civil Coalition. “If they don’t, the people will show them the road home.”

Yuval Steinitz, a right-wing Member of Parliament from the Likud party, said that Mr Olmert should quit immediately. “It’s hard to imagine a more harsh or critical indictment of the Prime Minister and of the entire Government,” he said. “If he has any vague notion of respecting Israel’s national security he should resign immediately.”

Yossi Beilin, leader of the leftist Meretz party, characterised the report’s findings as “harsher than expected”. “There is no room for interpretation right now. There is no room for dispute,” he said. “People understand that it won’t be possible for Olmert to continue.”

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