KEY POINTS:
JERUSALEM - An Israeli inquiry panel will publish a report today on the start of last year's war with Lebanese Hezbollah guerillas that could damage Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government.
The publication of interim findings on the first five days of the war by the government-appointed Winograd Commission is worrying for cabinet members who fear that harsh wording could destabilise Olmert's cabinet, a television report said.
Israel's Channel 1 said late on Sunday that Olmert was most worried the appearance of the word "failure" in the report could weaken his and Defence Minister Amir Peretz's positions.
Channel 10 television said leaked details from the document criticized Olmert for "misguided and rash judgment" in launching the air, sea and land campaign after Hezbollah gunmen seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.
But, Channel 10 said, the panel of two jurists, two former generals and a public policy expert, did not call for Olmert to step down.
The commission made no comment on the leaks, silence which political commentators took as confirmation of their accuracy.
Hezbollah fired 4,000 rockets into Israel during the war, sending a million people into shelters in attacks the Middle East's mightiest military failed to stop. Olmert's approval rating has since plunged to single digits in opinion polls.
Olmert's aides say he has no intention of resigning. The prime minister has argued that Israel made strategic gains in the war in a cease-fire deal that banished Hezbollah from its frontier strongholds and beefed up a UN peacekeeper force.
But public dissatisfaction with Olmert seemed certain to mount should the official findings prove critical, and likely diminish his ability to pursue peacemaking with the Palestinians which the United States has been trying to spur.
- REUTERS
