Israel's Prime Minister-elect, Ehud Barak, swept into power on Monday with an overwhelming 12 per cent majority over the incumbent, Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday began the arduous process of healing his divided country and rebuilding its strained relations with Middle East neighbours and the rest of the international community.

In a pre-dawn victory address to his party colleagues, in a speech to tens of thousands of supporters dancing in the centre of Tel Aviv and again in remarks on a visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Mr Barak vowed repeatedly to heal the rifts that have deepened this past decade between secular and Orthodox Jews and left-wingers and right-wingers and to put Israel back on the path to normalised ties with the Arab world.

On his first day as Israel's leader-in-waiting, Mr Barak, formerly the country's leading soldier, did his utmost to underline his pledge to be "the prime minister of all of Israel" - including those 44 per cent of his fellow citizens who had voted for Mr Netanyahu.

He surrounded himself not only with secular political colleagues but also with some of the moderate Orthodox leaders with whom he had struck a pre-election alliance.

He embraced the fiercely secular, left-wing Leah Rabin, the widow of his assassinated mentor, Yitzhak Rabin, and visited Mr Rabin's grave in Jerusalem.

But at the Wall, Judaism's most holy site, revered by traditional Orthodox Jews, he quoted teachings about Jewish unity from a venerated rabbinical sage. And he told his colleagues he planned to assemble a coalition spanning most of the Israeli political spectrum. The contrast between his effort to show concern for, and commitment to the entire Israeli electorate, and his predecessor's habit of inciting the various sectors of society against each other, could not have been more stark.

Congratulations on his victory flooded in from the region and around the world, from leaders privately deeply relieved that Mr Netanyahu has been denied a second term in office. Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority President with whom Mr Barak must now negotiate a permanent peace accord, was probably the happiest. He spoke mildly of his "respect" for the electorate's decision, and his hopes for peace progress, but his broad smile suggested heartfelt delight. President Mubarak of Egypt telephoned with an offer to help rid the region of the "extremely poisoned" atmosphere bequeathed by Mr Netanyahu. Jordan's leaders spoke of hopes for a revived peace process.

Even the Syrian media adopted a wait-and-see attitude, rather than their usual critical line on Israeli political developments, apparently impressed by Mr Barak's talk of forging a peace deal that would see Israeli troops withdrawn from southern Lebanon within a year. President Clinton, who had become infuriated by Mr Netanyahu's stalling of peace moves, was one of the earliest and most enthusiastic callers.

While Mr Barak attempts to assuage doubts and concerns among Mr Netanyahu's defeated supporters, his victory, as far as the Israeli left is concerned, marks the end of a hellish period. "Israel has returned to sanity," declared one banner waved aloft early this morning in Rabin Square, where Mr Rabin was murdered by an Orthodox Israeli right-winger in 1995. "We've been walking in a fog," said Mrs Rabin. "Now, the skies have cleared."

Journalist Doron Rozenblum unleashed what seemed like three years of pent-up anger and frustration in an article on the front page of the Ha'aretz daily. "What was that foreign body that destroyed our Israeli lives, unleashed its poison inside us, ruined everything, and then disappeared as suddenly as it had come?" he asked, each word dripping with bitterness. "Israel awoke this morning from a nightmare. . . Netanyahu wasn't just defeated . . . We vomited him out."

The challenge for Mr Barak in the days ahead, as he tries to build a majority coalition, will be to somehow reconcile the disparate Knesset parties, elected by people with such divergent priorities, such differing attitudes to religion, peacemaking, even democracy. The early indication, from his Labour Party colleagues, is that he may invite the Likud, now leaderless following Mr Netanyahu's dramatic resignation on Monday night, to join him as a junior coalition partner, and that he may also reach out to one or more of the Orthodox parties.

"I swear to you, citizens of Israel," Mr Barak declared in Rabin Square early yesterday morning, "this is, indeed, the dawn of a new day." If Mr Barak can somehow unite the squabbling tribes of Israel into an effective partnership, a new dawn it most certainly will be.