Israeli army chief of staff Dan Halutz, facing renewed calls to step down over the conduct of the Lebanon war following a scathing inquiry, said on Wednesday he would not resign.
"I have no intention of resigning," he told army radio. "When I have something to announce, I will do so."
"Fighting an enemy is a lot easier than battling against so-called colleagues," he said, in response to calls by reserve generals for him to take responsibility for the failures of this summer's war on Lebanon's Hizbullah.
Halutz faced mounting calls to resign after an internal military inquiry blamed army leaders for lax discipline that allowed two soldiers to be seized in a July cross-border raid that sparked the war on Hizbullah on July 12.
"He is responsible for a failure of the Israeli army (in Lebanon) that amounts to a knock-out. He has to resign," reserve General Yanush Ben-Gal said Monday, a day after results of the inquiry were submitted to chiefs of staff.
The majority of Israelis appear to share the view. In a poll aired on public television Tuesday, 62 percent said Halutz should resign, compared with 21 percent who were against the move.
So far, three senior army officials have resigned as a result of the 34-day war that ended under a UN-brokered truce on August 14 without achieving its main objectives.
The aims were to stop Hizbullah from firing rockets into the Jewish state and to free the two soldiers captured in the July raid.
General Udi Adam, the former chief of northern command, and his chief of staff, Boaz Cohen, resigned in mid-September.
Brigadier General Gal Hirsch, in charge of the northern Israel's border region with Lebanon, resigned on Sunday, hours before the results of the inquiry were presented.
Four Israeli commissions are examining the conduct of the Lebanon war.
These comprise a governmental commission set up by the cabinet on September 17; one by a state comptroller; one by parliament's foreign affairs and defence committee; and another army inquiry headed by a former chief of staff.