The Winograd Committee's final report on last summer's Lebanon war will include an examination of claims that the Israel Defense Forces committed war crimes during the fighting.

The allegations were made by both Meretz MK Zahava Gal-On and parents of soldiers who fought in the war. In response, committee chairman and retired judge Eliyahu Winograd said that the panel's final report would examine the war's compliance with international law.

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The main accusation revolves around the IDF's use of cluster bombs in civilian areas of southern Lebanon. The United Nations says that unexploded bomblets have killed 30 civilians and injured at least 180 since the war ended last summer.

Gal-On wrote to the Winograd panel several weeks ago to urge such an inquiry. She said she made the request after soldiers' parents - who had earlier approached Winograd independently - asked her to push for an investigation into whether there was ethical misconduct during the war.

Gal-On said that grave allegations made by human rights organizations, who accused the IDF of committing war crimes and harming Lebanese civilians, strengthened her conviction that these claims must be probed.

During last summer's war, Israel fired thousands of cluster bombs, using rockets and artillery shells as delivery systems. Each rocket or shell can contain several hundred bomblets, which then disperse and cover an area of hundreds of square meters. However, many fail to explode immediately upon landing, turning them into death traps for the civilians who returned to the area after the war ended.

According to testimony published in Haaretz, Israel fired at least 1.2 million bomblets via its Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), which can fire up to 12 rockets in 60 seconds. The UN estimates that three million such bomblets were fired into Lebanon during the war.