JERUSALEM - A stinging report on the government's handling of the Hezbollah rocket barrage against northern Israel during last summer's war in Lebanon is due next week, public radio reported on Saturday.

State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss will submit an "extremely severe" report to a parliamentary committee on Tuesday after a lengthy investigation into the government's handling of the north's rocket-battered residents both before and during the 34-day war, the radio reported.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who saw his approval ratings plummet in the war's aftermath, refused to be interviewed for the report and declined even to answer written questions submitted by Lindenstrauss, the radio report said.

Tuesday's preliminary findings precede a final report, to be released at a still undisclosed date, which will address the military's performance during the controversial and inconclusive conflict.

During the war against Hezbollah last July and August, the Shiite militia fired more than 4,000 rockets at northern Israel, forcing more than a million Israelis to spend a month in underground bomb shelters and scores more to flee south.

More than 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers, were killed in the war which failed to achieve its main objectives -- to stop Hezbollah from being able to fire rockets into Israel and to secure the release of two soldiers seized by militants in the July 12 cross-border raid that sparked the conflict.

Israel was also slammed abroad for the devastating use of its firepower in Lebanon, where more than 1,200 people -- mostly civilians -- were killed, and thousands of homes and infrastructure targets were bombed. -AFP