Olmert leads Israeli polls

An Israeli woman waits to fill her ballot at a polling station in Jerusalem yesterday during general elections. The Israeli election, viewed as a referendum on settlement pullout, may redraw the map of the Jewish state and uproot tens of thousands of settlers from the occupied West Bank. PHOTO: AFP

Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose centrist Kadima party is expected to win, aims to unilaterally dismantle remote settlements by 2010 and move uprooted settlers to bigger blocs on occupied land Palestinians want for a state.

Some 20,000 police and volunteers were on patrol for possible Palestinian bombings as Israelis voted. Media exit polls will be issued after balloting ends at 10 p.m. (3 p.m. EST)

Opinion polls have shown Kadima will win some 34 seats, enough to form a governing coalition in the 120-member parliament. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon founded Kadima last November before he suffered a stroke and went into a coma.

A smiling Olmert was among the first to cast his ballot.

"Go out and vote, all of Israel," Olmert said, referring to predictions of a low turnout because many Israelis see the result as a foregone conclusion.

Israelis were voting a day after the Islamist militant group Hamas presented its cabinet to the Palestinian parliament for approval, showing no sign of softening its stance on the Jewish state. Hamas, which triumphed in Palestinian elections in January, is formally sworn to Israel's destruction.

For Olmert, victory would mean approval of "consolidation," his term for the go-it-alone steps he plans should Hamas refuse to recognise Israel, disarm and accept interim peace accords.

The World Court has ruled that all settlements are illegal. Israel disputes this.

"These elections will determine the state's character, its borders and moral identity," elder statesman and Kadima candidate Shimon Peres said after voting.

Palestinians condemn Olmert's proposal, saying it would destroy any prospects for peace and deny them a viable state by grabbing land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

But unilateralism appeals to many Israelis worn down by a five-year-old Palestinian uprising and concerned by Hamas's rise to power in the West Bank and Gaza.

"I'm in favor of some withdrawals. I hope there won't be any more wars," said Tovah Weiss, an elderly woman who said she voted for Kadima.

The trauma for settlers of any withdrawal from land they see as a biblical birthright could dwarf that of last year's Gaza Strip pullout, which Sharon championed in a reversal of policy.

Some 60,000 West Bank settlers could be affected by Olmert's plan, far more than the 8,500 removed from Gaza. Around 240,000 Israelis live among 2.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank.

Meanwhile, two Israelis were killed yesterday in an blast near the border with the Gaza Strip in what Palestinian militant movement Islamic Jihad said was an attack designed to disrupt the country's election.

Two civilians, a Bedouin and his child, were killed in an explosion near the Nahal Oz kibbutz in southern Israel. The army said the blast was either caused by a fresh rocket attack or a dormant rocket that exploded.