Israelis back from battle report grievous missteps

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METULLA, Israel -- Soldiers returning from the war in Lebanon say the Israeli army was slow to rescue wounded comrades and suffered from a lack of supplies so dire they had to drink water from the canteens of dead Hezbollah guerrillas.

"We fought for nothing. We cleared houses that will be reoccupied in no time," said Ilia Marshak, a 22-year-old infantryman who spent a week in Lebanon.

Mr. Marshak said his unit was hindered by a lack of information, by poor training and by untested equipment. In one instance, Israeli troops occupying two houses inadvertently fired at each other because of poor communication between their commanders.

"We almost killed each other," he said. "We shot like blind people. ... We shot sheep and goats."

The war has cost Prime Minister Ehud Olmert much of his political capital. With approval ratings plummeting, he has been forced to shelve his West Bank pullout plan and is struggling to ride out a growing public storm over the government's wartime bungles.

At the height of the war in Lebanon, Mr. Olmert asserted that the fighting could create momentum for a West Bank pullout, prompting angry accusations that he was trying to hijack the war for a divisive political agenda.

However, in meetings this week, the prime minister told Cabinet ministers and key legislators that the West Bank plan was being shelved.

The war in Lebanon ended with considerable losses for Israel -- 118 soldiers killed, hundreds wounded, hundreds of thousands displaced -- but no clear gains.

The war was widely seen in Israel as a justified response to a July 12 cross-border attack in which Hezbollah gunmen killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two. Another five Israeli soldiers died in an unsuccessful rescue attempt

But the wartime solidarity crumbled after Israel agreed to pull its army from south Lebanon without crushing Hezbollah or rescuing the captured soldiers.