Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed Sunday to pour money into Israel's north, battered by Hezbollah rocket fire during the Lebanon war, amid increasing criticism his government bungled the offensive.
"The government has decided to place at the top of its agenda the strengthening of Haifa and the north of the country," Olmert said at the start of a cabinet meeting.
"Today we are bringing for approval a long list of steps aimed at allowing residents to get back to their routine at once," he said. Olmert said he would head a ministerial committee to oversee the reconstruction in the north, where thousands of residents were forced into bunkers or fled the daily barrage of Hezbollah rocket fire.
The committee will work out procedures on providing aid to residents and businesses in the north, he said.
Olmert and his government have been under intense criticism for mismanaging the 34-day war in Lebanon, including the lack of support for the north, which bore the brunt of the 4,000 rockets fired by Hezbollah.
The month-long offensive is estimated to have cost Israel 5.7 billion dollars (4.4 billion euros), the equivalent of 10 percent of the state budget or around half of the defence budget.
Included in the sum is more than 1.3 billion dollars in damage from the rockets, which are estimated to have demolished or damaged 12,000 homes, 1,600 cars, 600 businesses and 100 factories.
"The war in Lebanon left in its wake large pools of anger that are now looking for a channel to course into," the top-selling Yediot Aharonot said Sunday. "Things need to be examined. Things need to be shaken up. Things need to be changed."
Critics have called on the government to set up a state committee to examine the political and military leadership's conduct during the offensive.
The defence ministry has set up an internal commission to look into the armed forces' preparedness for and conduct during the war, but no other investigation has been set up.
Culture Minister Ophir Pines backed the call for a state inquiry during Sunday's cabinet meeting.
"We should win back the public trust in the government," a senior government official quoted Pines as telling the cabinet. "The solution for this is creating a national inquiry committee."
Olmert replied that he was discussing the possibility with Attorney General Menahem Azuz and would update the cabinet this week on the latter's recommendations on how to conduct an inquiry into the Lebanon war.
General Dan Halutz, Israel's chief of staff who has faced additional fire after revelations that he sold his stock portfolio hours before Israel launched its devastating offensive on Lebanon, defended the military's performance.
"In terms of points, it's a victory, even if maybe not a knockout," Halutz told army radio.
Israel had launched the war on July 12 vowing to retrieve two of its soldiers that Hezbollah seized that day in a deadly cross-border raid, and to stop the Shiite militant group from firing rockets into the Jewish state.
But Hezbollah continued to pummel the north of Israel with rockets, firing a record salvo on the very last day of the war, and the two soldiers remain missing.
Olmert, who formally assumed the prime minister's post in early May, has watched his ratings plummet as a result of the offensive that left 160 Israelis dead and sent hundreds of thousands fleeing south on their own means to escape the deadly rocket fire.
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