Rifts in Olmert coalition after Israel war report

JERUSALEM, May 1 (Reuters) A member of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet today quit and pressure mounted within his ruling party for him to resign after a scathing report on his handling of last year's war in Lebanon.

Eitan Cabel, a minister without portfolio from the Israeli leader's main governing partner, the Labour Party, told a news conference: ''I can no longer sit in a government headed by Ehud Olmert.'' Cabel said Olmert ''must resign'' after a commission probing the inconclusive war against Hezbollah fighters listed yesterday severe failings on the part of the premier, Defence Minister Amir Peretz of Labour and the army chief, who has already quit.

In potentially the most serious blow to Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told aides ''he must go,'' Israel's Channel 10 television network reported. Livni is widely seen as the leading candidate to succeed Olmert.

Olmert, who has vowed to stay on, lobbied to save his job after media reports said a majority of lawmakers inside his centrist Kadima now favoured his ouster.

A statement by Olmert's office said he had the support of a lawmaker quoted earlier as urging him to resign.

Party sources said the head of the Kadima faction in parliament, Avigdor Yitzhaki, was gathering signatures for a letter he would present to Olmert on Thursday, asking him to resign.

Besides Livni, another possible candidate to succeed Olmert is Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu of the rightist Likud party could also pose a challenge.

Under Kadima's bylaws Olmert can only be ousted by agreement.

Parliament could force him out by a no confidence vote for which there does not yet appear to be a majority.

Parliament will meet in special session on Thursday on the war findings, answering motions from lawmakers who have been vocal in their demands for Olmert to step down.

''NOOSE TIGHTENING'' Newspaper headlines spoke of a ''noose tightening around his neck'' and a ''gun to his head''.

The Winograd commission said the cabinet rubber-stamped the decision to go to war but Olmert bore ''supreme responsibility'' for launching the air, sea and land assaults without a proper plan after Hezbollah seized two Israeli soldiers on July 12.

The government-appointed panel, however, stopped short of recommending that Olmert step down. A snap Israel Radio opinion poll after its interim report examining the start of the war found that 69 per cent of Israelis wanted Olmert to go.

After a series of sleaze and graft allegations, many Israelis are disillusioned with their political class and some saw the findings on the war as the final straw for Olmert.

Olmert, as widely expected, accepted responsibility for ''many mistakes'' during the 34-day campaign in which Hezbollah rained 4,000 rockets on Israel and Israeli warplanes pounded southern Beirut, one of the militant group's strongholds.

But he said he would not resign, insisting he was the best man to put things right.

Some 1,200 people were killed in Lebanon, including about 900 civilians, while 117 Israeli troops died along with 41 civilians caught in the rocket strikes in northern Israel.

At his news conference, Cabel said he would try to persuade Labour to pull out of its power-sharing partnership with Kadima.

Labour has 19 of the Olmert coalition's 78 seats in the 120-member parliament.

REUTERS SY BST0112