Ehud Olmert’s days as Israeli Prime Minister appeared numbered last night as he faced growing pressure to quit, even from within his own party, as the political fallout from the conflict in Lebanon deepened.

Tzipi Livni, the Foreign Minister and Mr Olmert’s second in command, was reported as saying that the Prime Minister should resign after the inquiry into his Government’s handling of last summer’s conflict.

Ms Livni, who is also Deputy Prime Minister and is regarded by many as a potential successor to Mr Olmert, was expected to make a statement today. Her spokeswoman denied that she would lead a putsch against the Prime Minister.

But she has been conspicuously silent over the past 36 hours, holding back from giving Mr Olmert public support as he struggles to maintain his hold on power.

The Winograd Commission’s devastating findings, published on Monday, concluded that he had gone to war “without a second thought” and without a plan. The report left Ms Livni comparatively unscathed.

The report’s findings began to take their toll yesterday as one Labour Cabinet minister quit, unable to continue to serve in Mr Olmert’s Government. More troubling for the Prime Minister was the pressure from within his own Kadima party. A majority of Kadima MPs intended to call for him to quit at a party showdown tomorrow.

Ms Livni was quoted by Israel’s Channel 10 as telling aides: “Olmert must go”. And there were also signs that senior party figures had begun to canvass Kadima MPs about a change of leader.

If Mr Olmert was forced out of office, Ms Livni, as his deputy, would become Prime Minister. She would be Israel’s first woman leader since Golda Meir.

Ms Livni, a rightwinger and former protégé of Ariel Sharon, the former Likud Prime Minister, has for some months been widely rumoured to be setting the stage for a leadership challenge. She is much more popular than Mr Olmert.

Tensions between the two have grown as Ms Livni’s prominence on the international stage has grown. There have been periods when the pair have not even been on speaking terms.

The coalition partners that make up the Israeli Government, Kadima and Labour, are desperate to avoid early elections in which dozens of their MPs would risk losing their seats to the right-wing Likud. An Israel Radio poll showed that 69 per cent of Israelis thought that Mr Olmert should resign. Seventy-four per cent believed that Amir Peretz, his Defence Minister, who was also faulted for the conflict’s failures, should go too.

Thousands of Israelis are expected to attend a public rally in Tel Aviv tomorrow aimed at forcing the Government to dissolve. Israeli newspapers greeted the commission findings with editorials calling for Mr Olmert’s resignation.

However, the embattled Prime Minister appears determined to carry on for the time being. Despite the public backlash, his Government is in a stable ruling coalition with the leftist Labour Party, led Mr Peretz. With neither leader ready to resign, and Labour unlikely to pull out of the coalition, there is no immediate prospect of fresh elections.

That could change next month during Labour Party primaries, where Mr Peretz will likely lose a challenge to his leadership. Ehud Barak, a former Israeli Prime Minister or Ami Ayalon, a formre navy commander, will likely emerge as the new Labour leader.

There are already signs that the ruling coalition has begun to fray. Eitan Cabel, from the Labour Party, became the first Cabinet minister to resign yesterday. “I can no longer sit in a Government led by Ehud Olmert,” Mr Cabel said.

Next in line

— Born in Tel Aviv, Tzipi Livni is the daughter of Eitan Livni, a Polish-born former Likud member of the Knesset

— She served as a lieutenant in the Israel Defence Forces and worked as a spy for Mossad during the early 1980s

— Ms Livni is a 48-year-old mother of two. One of her children is serving compulsory military service, while the other is attending school

— She was first elected to the Knesset for the Likud party in 1999

— A close ally of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, she helped broker Israel’s controversial pullout from Gaza in 2005

— When Mr Sharon broke from Likud to form Kadima, Mrs Livni followed him, becoming the party’s number three leader

— When Mr Sharon suffered a stroke, she threw her support behind Ehud Olmert, becoming his second in command

— Ms Livni is Israel’s second woman foreign minister, after Golda Meir, who rose to become Prime Minister

— In an interview Ms Livni once said “guy issues” clouded the Israeli Government’s decision-making abilities: “Sometimes there are guy issues,” she said. Asked if there had been a “guy problem” in the conduct of the Lebanon war, she said: “Not only in the war. In all kinds of discussions, I hear arguments between generals and admirals and such and I say, Guys, stop it”

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