Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud signed agreements with left-of-centre Labour and an ultra-Orthodox party today, giving his coalition a parliamentary majority to allow a planned Gaza withdrawal.
The deal will likely enable Mr Sharon to hold peace talks with Mr Mohammed Abbas, a moderate expected to win a January 9 Palestinian election to succeed Yasser Arafat, and to confront mounting threats from Jewish settlers to resist evacuation from occupied Gaza.
Mr Sharon had reached agreement with Labour, headed by veteran peacemaker Mr Shimon Peres, last month.
But the deal was delayed until the religious United Torah Judaism Party agreed earlier today to join the coalition, giving Mr Sharon a more comfortable margin in Parliament.
The deal with the religious party was signed earlier today, Mr Sharon's spokesman Mr Assaf Shariv said. He added Likud and Labour signed their agreement shortly afterwards.
Some of the religious party's rabbis were critical of Mr Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip later this year, but its members were persuaded to join with government promises to rescind funding cuts to their school system.
A dozen pro-settler members of Mr Sharon's party oppose the plan to remove some 8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza and the northern West Bank as part of his "disengagement" plan.
While western countries see the pullout as a prospect for peace, Palestinians worry Sharon would afterwards retain West Bank settlement blocs on land the Palestinians want to establish a viable state.