The committee investigating the incident in which a Hezbollah missile hit an Israel Navy vessel off Beirut published its temporary findings on Monday, pointing a blaming finger at the ship's captain and the admiral of the navy for the attack.

Israel Defense Forces chief, Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, asked the committee to complete its report before any disciplinary actions were taken.

On July 14, a Hezbollah-launched missile struck Israel Navy vessel Hanit off the coast of Lebanon. At the time of impact, the ship's state-of-the-art anti-missile system was not functioning, apparently because intelligence did not expect Hezbollah possessed missiles of that sort.

	Advertisement

The committee found three other anti-missile systems were also turned off and the majority of the soldiers were in the mess hall, eating Sabbath dinner.

In addition, the ship's vulnerability to attack was increased because it was cruising a short distance from the Lebanon coast on orders of the admiralty.

Four soldiers were killed and dozens injured in the explosion and the ship had to be towed back to Haifa for repairs.

The damage would have been much greater if the missile hadn't hit a crane above the helicopter landing pad.

In the wake of the attack, Army Intelligence officials accused Navy of ignoring information it passed on to them, warning that Chinese-made land-to-sea missiles had been sent to Iran and from there could potentially show up in Lebanon.