Israel's Cabinet appointed yesterday a commission to investigate the way the government and military handled the Lebanon war, bowing to calls for an inquiry but rejecting veterans' demands for an independent probe.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has come under fire from critics who say he launched an ill-prepared campaign in Lebanon that failed to crush the Lebanese Hezbollah after it abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid in July.
Israeli reservists who fought in Lebanon have complained of poor planning and tactics.
Thousands of Israelis have taken part in protests to demand an independent inquiry into the war by a so-called state commission whose members would be appointed by a supreme court judge.
Olmert has remarked that such an investigation -- which in past Israeli-Arab wars has led to high-level resignations -- would be too time-consuming.
Instead, the Cabinet approved by a vote of 20-2, with one abstention, Olmert's nomination of a retired judge and four other members to a panel that will examine how political leaders and military commanders conducted the war.
Amir Peretz, who is Olmert's defense minister and leader of his main coalition partner, the Labour Party, voted in favor of the government-appointed panel, the Defense Ministry said.
Peretz had pushed for an independent probe of the war in which 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers, and nearly 1,200 people in Lebanon -- most of them civilians -- were killed before the fighting ended in a UN-brokered truce on Aug. 14.
Meanwhile, Israel is making progress in its efforts to secure the release of a soldier captured by Palestinian militants last June, diplomatic and security officials said yesterday.
This represented the first sign from Israel that a deal could be worked out with the serviceman's captors.
As part of the contacts, which are being overseen by Egyptian mediators, the soldier's father received a letter from his son as a sign that he is alive, the security officials said.
The officials cautioned that the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit could still take days, or weeks, and Shalit's father, Noam, played down speculation that a deal was close.
"Unfortunately I have no indication that my son is alive," Shalit told Army Radio yesterday.
However, he declined to discuss reports that he had received a letter and said negotiators have given him little information about the status of the talks.
Despite Shalit's caution, the Israeli officials were the first to confirm Palestinian reports of progress toward a deal, in which the soldier would be freed in return for the release of hundreds of Arab prisoners held by Israel.
Ghazi Hamad, spokesman for the outgoing Hamas-led Palestinian government, told Army Radio that had has heard from "many sources" that a letter from the soldier had been delivered.
"I think they have received a sign that he is alive and that he is good and that he is in a good condition," Hamad said.
"I know that there is progress but I don't know at what phase they are at. I don't know if it will be after a week, two weeks or three weeks," he said.
"This depends on the Israeli answers to the demands on the Palestinian side," he said.
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