( dpa ) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert thinks that the Winograd report on his government's handling of the 2006 war in Lebanon has confirmed his intention to stay in office, media reports said Thursday.
Referring to Olmert's confidants, the media said the Winograd report had removed the mark of Cain from his forehead.
Olmert was now planning to resume talks to extend his coalition and intended to include ultra-orthodox Thora Judaism, it was said, while opposition politicians continued to call for his resignation.
Israeli radio said with reference to circles within the Labour Party that Defence Minister Ehud Barak was not assumed to leave the coalition government. Barak himself only intended to make a statement after reading the whole report, including the secret part, he said.
The commission of experts has accused Israel's political and military leadership of grave mistakes made during the war with Lebanon in summer 2006.
At the same time, the commssion's chair and former judge Eliahu Winograd said on Wednesday evening the Israeli ground offensive in the final days of the war had been "virtually inevitable."
The ground offensive had been most heavily criticized by Olmert's critics.
The war began on July 12, 2006 with a massive attack by the Lebanese Hezbollah militia on Israel's north. The attackers kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, whose fate has been unknown since then.
During the one-month-long war more than 1,200 people were killed on the Lebanese side, while 160 Israeli soldiers and civilians died.