Israel’s once-mighty army was criticised heavily for its failure to secure a clear victory in the 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon in a report released last night by a high-ranking government panel.

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, who has weathered calls to resign over his wartime leadership, appeared to have dodged the bullet again when the panel described his decision to launch a costly ground offensive in the final days of the war as “practically essential”.

Justice Eliyahu Winograd, who headed the committee of investigation, reserved his most scathing criticism for the military leadership, which he said relied too heavily on air power and then, when it unleashed ground forces on southern Lebanon, “did not achieve any military objectives”.

Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz, chief of staff then, has already resigned, as has Amir Peretz, the former Defence Minister.

Justice Winograd said that “both the Prime Minister and Defence Minister acted from the point of view that what they decided was in the interest of the state of Israel”. He added: “The decision to launch the ground operation was within the framework of decision makers’ diplomatic and professional judgment based on the information they had available.”

The army’s lack of preparedness and its inability to crush the Hezbollah militia, which continued firing Katyusha rockets into northern Israel until the end of the 33-day conflict, “had far-reaching consequences for us and our enemies”, Justice Winograd said. “Israel embarked on a prolonged war that it initiated, which ended without a clear Israeli victory from a military standpoint,” the retired judge told a packed press conference in Jerusalem. “A quasi-military organisation withstood the strongest army in the Middle East for weeks.”

The much-anticipated, 500-page report examined Israel’s conduct towards Hezbollah and Lebanon dating back to the Jewish state’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. It was shown to Mr Olmert an hour before its findings were made public.

Justice Winograd did point to “serious failures” in how the political and military leaderships interacted during the war — a conflict that he described as “a great and grave missed opportunity”. While emphasising that the fault for this “lies mostly with the military”, he did note the “weakness projected by the political echelon”.

An aide to Mr Olmert said that the Prime Minister would not step down as a result of the report, as many of his critics — including former reservist soldiers and bereaved military families — had hoped.

Hezbollah, which triggered the blistering conflict by ambushing an Israeli army patrol in July 2006, killing three soldiers and capturing two, was quick to cry victory after the report was released, saying that “the Israeli Army suffered a military defeat at the hands of Hezbollah”.

Ehud Barak, the current Defence Minister of Israel, had threatened to lead his Labour party out of government and bring down the ruling coalition once the full report was published. Analysts deemed that unlikely, as Labour’s right-wing rivals, Likud, would probably win a snap election.

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