An Israeli cabinet minister resigned this morning and called for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to follow suit after a damning report into the war in Lebanon.

Eitan Cabel, Minister without Portfolio, demanded Mr Olmert’s resignation after a commission of inquiry concluded that the Prime Minister went into war “without a second thought” despite having no practical plan to win the conflict against the Hezbollah guerilla movement last summer.

The resignation is the first sign that Mr Olmert’s coalition Government may not be willing to offer him total support.

“Ehud Olmert must resign. He must bear responsibility,” Cabel said. “Following the publication of this report, I cannot remain in a government led by Ehud Olmert.”

The senior politician, who is a member of the Labour party, is the first cabinet minister to resign after yesterday's report by the Winograd Commission into the conflict. The study said Mr Olmert's decision to declare war against Hezbollah last summer without any signs of clear preparation showed “a severe failure in judgment, responsibility and caution”.

Eliyahu Winograd, the commission's chairman, dismissed the army’s overall mission as doomed from the start, and added that the military’s attempt to free two Israeli soldiers seized by Hezbollah on July 12 and destroy the militant group was “overambitious and not feasible”.

The war kicked off after Hezbollah killed three and and kidnapped two Israeli soldiers on July 12, 2006, while firing rockets from its bases in southern Lebanon into Israel.

Mr Olmert said last night that he would not resign insisting: “The last thing this country needs is elections.” His spokeswoman today insisted that the Prime Minister would recover his eroded authority.

The commission had been expected to criticise the handling of the conflict, but the harsh language and direct criticism of the Prime Minister’s role has created enormous pressure on Mr Olmert to resign.

As Mr Cabel revealed he would quit, Israel's national newspapers echoed his call for Mr Olmert to resign. “A Gun To His Head” and “He Needs To Go” said mass-market Yediot Aharonot, while the liberal Haaretz concluded that the report “contains not even one lenient word to which the Prime Minister could cling in order to prolong his term”.

Support for Mr Olmert and his coalition government has been falling since the war, which most Israelis consider to have been a disaster. The 34-day conflict saw 158 Israelis killed. More than 1,200 Lebanese died, most of them civilians, inviting widespread international condemnation, yet the war’s aims to retrieve the captured soldiers and crush Hezbollah were never met. The Shia organisation was able to fire 4,000 rockets at northern Israeli towns and cities throughout the conflict.

Releasing the report yesterday, Mr Winograd said: “The Prime Minister made up his mind hastily, despite the fact that no detailed military plan was submitted to him and without asking for one."

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