Tel Aviv - The conflict known in Israel as the Second
Lebanon War broke out on July 12, hours after militants from the
Lebanese Hezbollah movement snatched two Israeli soldiers and killed
three others in a cross-border attack.
Hezbollah also fired Katyusha rockets and mortars into Israel, and
an enraged Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, then defence minister Amir
Peretz and former military chief of staff Dan Halutz ordered the
Israel Defence Force (IDF) onto the offensive to recover the
soldiers.
Israel's strategy initially focussed on massive aerial and
artillery bombardments. Large numbers of ground forces were called up
only at a later stage.
Within days it became apparent that the government's stated aims
of bringing the two seized soldiers back home was not likely to be
achieved, and Israeli officials talked instead of pushing Hezbollah
back from the border, where it had entrenched itself over the years.
That too proved a difficult goal to meet.
Hezbollah responded to the Israeli offensive by launching nearly
4,000 rockets at northern Israeli towns and villages, reaching as far
south as the port city of Haifa and beyond.
Israel's air force, for its part, pounded Hezbollah targets and
Lebanese infrastructure, particularly in southern Lebanon and
Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.
By the time a ceasefire came into effect on August 14, more than
1,200 Lebanese and 164 Israelis had been killed.
The vast majority of Lebanese dead were civilians caught up in the
Israeli aerial and artillery bombardments, while the Israeli
fatalities included 45 civilians killed by Hezbollah rockets.
As the war drew to a close, public opinion in Israel became highly
critical of the government and military's performance during and
before the war. Reserve soldiers and bereaved parents also launched
protests, saying troops did not receive clear orders, proper
equipment and advance training and preparation.
While Israelis overwhelmingly supported the war, which they
regarded as a justified and appropriate reaction to the unprovoked
raid by Hezbollah, many later viewed it as a failure because it did
not achieve the government's stated aims of retrieving the two
soldiers and significantly weakening Hezbollah.
The protests eventually led Olmert to promise a government-
appointed commission of inquiry, led by retired judge Eliyahu
Winograd, which published an interim report in April analysing the
years and hours leading up to, and the first five days of the war.
Its final report focusses on the course of and conclusion of the war.
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