In a landmark report on the country's treatment of the Arab minority, a commission of inquiry has found police used excessive force in stopping Arab riots three years and that the country's leaders badly underestimated the community's anger after decades of systematic discrimination.

Thirteen Israeli Arabs were killed in the October 2000 protests, in which thousands threw stones and blocked streets in a show of support with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A Jewish motorist was killed by a rock at the time.

After hearing 377 witnesses in nearly three years, the Or Commission released its report of several hundred pages. It was only the fourth probe of such a scope in the country's history. The others were a 1974 investigation into reasons why the government failed to predict the Yom Kippur War, the 1983 commission into massacres of Palestinians at the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Lebanon and an investigation into the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

The commission's recommendations are not legally binding, but carry strong weight. The 1983 findings forced Ariel Sharon to resign from his post as defense minister.

After the October 2000 riots, then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak ordered a commission of inquiry. In his testimony, Barak said the violence had taken him by surprise. Along with 12 other politicians and police officers, Barak received a letter from the commission in February warning that he could be implicated by its findings.

The following articles offer reports from the riots' first days, background, perspective and analysis about the upheaval and its aftermath.