JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was stepping up his efforts to stitch together a new governing coalition after his Gaza pullout plan suffered an embarrassing reverse in parliament.
MPs voted 53 to 44 against the prime minister's speech at the beginning of the winter parliamentary session.
The session was largely centered on his so-called disengagement plan, after it was opposed by several members of Sharon's own Likud party and by the main opposition Labour party.
While the vote late Monday was largely symbolic, it underlined how Sharon has few options but to bring Labour into government if he wants a majority for his pullout plan when it is put to a formal vote in parliament in two weeks' time.
Labour has given its qualified backing for the plan, which will see all 8,000 Jewish residents of Gaza uprooted from their homes next year, but deputy premier Ehud Olmert said it was now time for the party to come off the fence.
"There is no doubt that the Labour party is the priority for the enlargement of the coalition but what we need to know is whether they really want to take part in crucial decisions in power," Olmert told public radio Tuesday.
Sharon lost his overall majority in June when some traditional allies balked at the pullout plan while some Likud MPs are furious that Sharon is still pushing on with a project that was rejected in a party referendum in May.
Olmert, Sharon's closest ally in government, said the current political instability was "dangerous", as he attacked right-wing Likud opponents of Sharon for risking "the collapse of Likud and the fall of the government".
Sharon held a series of meetings with overall Labour leader Shimon Peres about joining the coalition earlier in the summer but they failed to come to an agreement.
The situation has been further complicated after Likud's central committee voted against Labour joining the government, although Sharon has made clear he will not be bound by that verdict.
Another possible scenario for Sharon could see him bring the ultra-Orthodox Shas or United Torah Judaism (UTJ) parties into government.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz held talks Tuesday with Shas's spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, in a bid to persuade him to reverse his previous opposition to the pullout while Sharon will meet UTJ leaders on Wednesday.
However, Shas or UTJ's entry into government could only serve to trigger the departure of their arch-opponents, the secular Shinui party, which is the second largest party in the current coalition.
If he cannot put together a new coalition, Sharon may feel he has little option but to either call snap elections or even hold a nationwide referendum on the disengagment plan -- an idea he has previously rejected.
Opponents of the pullout argue that it will serve victory on a plate to radical Palestinian factions such as Hamas which have been waging war against the Israelis from their Gaza stronghold.
A massive operation in northern Gaza, designed to put a halt to rockets attacks on southern Israel by Hamas, entered its third week on Tuesday, having already left 111 Palestinians dead and scenes of utter devastation.
Much of the violence has been centered on the Jabaliya refugee camp, where sporadic gunfire from tanks sent the Palestinian population ducking for shelter on Tuesday.
Army bulldozers continued to level citrus groves and houses in the north of the camp, an AFP correspondent reported.
In a statement issued after its weekly meeting, the Palestinian cabinet criticised "the international silence in the face of the continuous Israeli aggression in northern Gaza."
The army meanwhile announced that a system to give residents in the southern Israeli town of Sderot early warning of rocket attacks was declared operational Tuesday.
Two children died in Sderot late last month in a Qassam attack, makeshift rockets named after Hamas' armed wing.