"We made a certain number of mistakes, such as the recent strike on the car of a Hamas terrorist, not knowing that his wife and girl were with him," he told Israel's top-selling paper.

Yaalon was referring to the June 12 helicopter raid in Gaza City that killed Yasser Taha, a military leader of the Islamist movement, wife and their infant daughter.

He also cited the killing by Israeli troops in October 2002 of a sexagenarian Palestinian woman in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Yaalon deplored the damage caused to the Palestinian education and culture ministries during the Defensive Shield operation in the spring of 2002.

"This was a blunder. There were intolerable acts of vandalism," said the army chief, who was second-in-command at the time.

He also explained he was against the siege of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"My position was not accepted. We paid a price for it. The Americans issued us a severe reprimand," Yaalon said, also arguing that the veteran Palestinian leader came out stronger of the five-week siege.

But he nevertheless made a positive assessment of his first year at the head of the army and said "there is a good chance that the cycle of violence will come to a complete end in the days ahead.

"In the light of the resistance shown by the Israeli people and the heroic struggle of the Tsahal (Israeli army) against terrorism we can announce that we have won," he added.

Yaalon's declaration of victory, already carried in the Yediot on Thursday, drew sharp criticism with the newspaper Maariv quoting senior defence sources as saying they would "only complicate" the situation.

A poll published Friday in Yediot also found that 73 percent of Israelis did not consider the Jewish state victorious in the intifada, which has cost more than 3,370 lives, including 770 Israelis.

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