JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Olmert of Israel will face his third criminal investigation, with justice officials probing his actions as industry and trade minister.

“The suspicions relate, mainly, to Minister Olmert’s involvement in decisions by the Investment Center, in political appointments, and other aid to political associates in various public bodies,” the Justice Ministry said in a statement yesterday.

A spokesman for Mr. Olmert’s office said the prime minister couldn’t respond immediately.

Mr. Olmert, 62, was questioned last week as part of an investigation into whether he interfered in 2005 with the state auction of Bank Leumi Le-Israel Ltd. He is also the subject of a criminal investigation over a house in Jerusalem for which he is alleged to have paid less than the market price.

Attorney General Menahem Mazuz’s decision yesterday to order the new probe comes six months after State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss recommended opening a criminal investigation into Mr. Olmert’s decision to grant state benefits to a certain company during his term as industry and trade minister.

Mr. Olmert was a close associate of the attorney that represented the company in its request to the ministry’s Investment Center and therefore should not have involved himself in the project, Mr. Lindenstrauss said in a report released in April. The prime minister denied any wrongdoing in a statement issued by his office at the time of the comptroller’s report.

Mr. Olmert and his aides had acted “intensively” to change the conditions set by the professionals in the ministry for granting benefits to T.S. Silicate Industries Ltd., the comptroller said in the April report. The company was represented by Mr. Olmert’s former law partner Uri Messer, who chaired the organization that spearheaded Mr. Olmert’s election as mayor of Jerusalem in 1998, the comptroller’s statement said.

Additional suspicions against Mr. Olmert, based on a second report by Mr. Lindenstrauss, which relate to the appointment of officials by Mr. Olmert at the Small Business Authority, will also be investigated by police, the Justice Ministry said in the statement.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Israelis and Palestinian Arabs to avoid taking steps that antagonize each other as she began a trip aimed at building support for a Middle East peace conference later this year. “This is a delicate time,” Ms. Rice told reporters yesterday as she flew to Israel from Russia, according to a transcript. “We have to be very careful, as we are trying to move toward the establishment of a Palestinian state, about actions and statements that erode confidence in the parties’ commitment to a two-state solution.”

Ms. Rice was responding to a question about Israel’s authorization last week of a plan to confiscate Arab-owned land between Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim. While Israel maintains the land will enable it to build a road that will ease travel for Arab residents, Palestinian Arab negotiators said the move was an illegal land grab that raised questions about Israel’s commitment to resolving the Middle East conflict.

The top American diplomat will be shuttling this week between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority, as she tries to arrange the conference that was announced in July by President Bush. She met Mr. Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak separately yesterday. Tomorrow, she visits the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas.