Special report: Israel-Lebanon Conflicts   [ Video ][Gallery]

    JERUSALEM, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- Israel's State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss has appointed a team of 50 staff members to look into the government and army's handling of the July-August Israel-Hezbollah fighting, local newspaper Ha'aretz reported on Friday.

    Lindenstrauss and his office's security chief met on Thursday with high-ranking officials from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF),police units, the cabinet as well as heads of northern communities for inquiry, said the report.

    The state comptroller's office, a government watchdog, has begun investigating the events of the war and on the home front shortly after Israel's fighting with Lebanese Hezbollah subsided.

    The Knesset (parliament) State Control Committee expects the comptroller to submit an interim report soon while the opposition hopes to use the report to promote the establishment of an independent state commission to probe "the war", according to the report.

    Despite a national sentiment calling for the establishment of an independent state commission, the Israeli government appointed on Sept. 17 a governmental inquiry committee, headed by retired judge Eliyahu Winograd to examine the decisions made by political and military leaders during the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

    Violence between the two sides erupted on July 12 after Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others during cross-border attacks.

    The 34-day-long Israel-Hezbollah conflict ended on Aug. 14 after Israel agreed to bow to a UN-brokered truce without retrieving the two captive soldiers and disarming the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah.

    In the wake of the truce, calls for forming a state inquiry committee in the Jewish state to probe the issue mounted. Enditem