Israeli deputy prime minister Shimon Peres told the commission investigating last summer’s war in Lebanon that he opposed starting the conflict, according to witness statements made public on Thursday.

"If it had been up to me, I would not have gone to war. If it had been up to me, I would not have made a list of objectives for this war… We were attacked and we had to defend ourselves. That’s all," Peres told the inquiry.

The extracts from his November 7 testimony were made public by the commission, which is due to publish its findings in mid-April.

In addition to Peres, some 70 military commanders and politicians, among them Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defence Minister Amir Peretz and former chief of staff General Dan Halutz, appeared before the commission which was set up last September 17.

It was established under pressure from thousands of military reservists who demanded a full-scale inquiry into the conflict.

Despite repeated calls for heads to roll, Halutz was the only senior figure to quit over the conflict that failed to release two captured soldiers or halt thousands of rocket attacks on the Jewish state.

Israel launched the war against Shiite militants from Hezbollah in Lebanon after they seized the two soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12. The war ended on August 14 under a UN-brokered ceasefire.

The Israeli media have long referred to the 2006 conflict as "The Second Lebanon War." The first was in 1982, when Israel advanced on the Lebanese capital in an operation codenamed "Peace in Galilee."