Jerusalem ? An official panel that investigated Israel’s 2006 war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon said Wednesday that it had found “serious failures and shortcomings” by the government and the army in waging the campaign, but it did not assign specific blame to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The panel criticized Israel’s political and military leadership in harsh but general terms, blunting the political impact of its findings and leaving it unclear whether they would generate enough turmoil in Israeli politics to unseat Olmert or bring about early elections.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the leader of the Labor Party, promised last year to work for Olmert’s replacement or seek new elections after the report’s publication, but he had no immediate comment, weighing his next moves.

In its 500-page final report, the war inquiry panel, headed by retired judge Eliyahu Winograd, called the Lebanon campaign a “serious missed opportunity,” a war begun without an exit strategy that ended “without Israel winning a clear military victory.”

“A paramilitary organization with a few thousand fighters held out, during several weeks, against the most powerful army in the Middle East, that enjoyed absolute air superiority and advantages of size and technology,” the report said.

More than 1,000 Lebanese and 158 Israelis were killed in a month of fighting, triggered by the cross-border capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah.