The Winograd Commission which is investigating the events of the 2006 Second Lebanon War will present its interim report to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz on Monday afternoon. Judge (ret.) Eliyahu Winograd, the commission's chairman, will hold a news conference immediately afterwards.

The interim report will deal with the period from the IDF's exit from Lebanon in 2000, to the border attack on July 12th 2006 in which IDF reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were abducted.

The interim report is thus not expected to deal with the conduct of the war which followed immediately after July 12th.

However, the Winograd Commission has told the Supreme Court that it will comply with the order to publish transcripts of testimony by the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister and then-Chief of Staff Dan Halutz two weeks after the release of the interim report.

OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Gadi Eizenkot said Wednesday that the IDF knew on July 12th 2006 that a military operation would not lead to the liberation of the abducted soldiers. This directly contradicts Olmert's central war speech in the Knesset, in which he told lawmakers and the general public that releasing the captives was the war's central goal.

Eizenkot spoke at Amal School in Nahariya, where Goldwasser had been a student.

Eizenkot said that on July 12th, the IDF presented the government with a plan that had six goals, the most important of which included (1) causing major damage to Hizbullah's infrastructure and (2) bringing about the implementation of UNSC resolution 1559 to force the Lebanese Army take charge of southern Lebanon.

It took 30 to 40 minutes from the moment the soldiers were abducted to the moment the IDF realized what had happened and announced "Code Hannibal" - which set in motion search operations, said Eizenkot. A Merkava tank then hit a land mine, and four crew members were killed.

The original order of action issued at the outset of the war called for an operation that would take no more than 6 to 8 days, said Eizenkot.