A three-judge Supreme Court panel has ruled that the Winograd Commission, investigating the failures of the Second Lebanon War, must publicize the testimony of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and others as soon as possible.
The Commission is planning to publicize its interim findings in about three months, but MK Zahava Gal'on of the left-wing Meretz Party petitioned the Court with a demand to publish the commission's protocols immediately.
During the court session, it was announced that the testimonies of Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, and former IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz would be released before Passover - i.e., within ten days - while other protocols would be publicized this Sunday.
Gal'on said afterwards that she was pleased with the decision, "but in light of past experience, it still remains to see whether the Commission will actually publish what it said it will publish."
The three judges had criticism of the Commission, noting that it had not related seriously to a decision of six weeks ago recommending the publication of the protocols "very quickly." Justice Eliezer Rivlin even said that the Commission had acted in a form of contempt of court.
Other Lebanon War News: Miracle, Stats and Names
It was learned today that during the war eight months ago, a rocket actually landed on the wall of an oil refinery in Haifa - but miraculously did not cause an explosion or casualties. The news was publicized in the refinery's annual fiscal report.
The official police statistics show that nearly 4,000 Katyusha rockets landed in Israel during the five weeks of combat, including over 900 in urban areas. The rockets killed 52 and wounded nearly 2,000. The Kiryat Shmonah area alone was hit by 1,012 Katyushas, the Nahariya area received 808 hits, Tzfat - 471, Tiberias - 181, and even Nazareth/Upper Nazareth, some 70 kilometers south of Lebanon, was hit seven times.
In the course of the war, some 155-160 civilians and soldiers were killed.
The northern city of Maalot and environs, where Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited today, was hit during the war by 642 rockets.
The Winograd Commission announced nearly two weeks ago that its interim report would include a discussion of how it functioned to gather its information and make its decisions; an analysis of the period before the war, beginning from the unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000; the making of the decisions having to do with the onset of the war; and more.
Earlier this week, the Ministerial Committee on Symbols and Ceremonies decided that the battles of last summer are, in fact, to be categorized as a "war" and not merely an offensive, a campaign, or the like. Parents of fallen soldiers expressed satisfaction with the decision. Wednesday night, in a quicker-than-expected decision, the official name of the war was designated as The Second Lebanon War. The committee rejected naming it the Northern War or the Northern Shield War.