Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is preparing to open coalition talks to save his shattered government and avoid early elections that could stall his Gaza withdrawal plan.
Israel's brewing political crisis spilled over when Mr Sharon dismissed Shinui, the main coalition partner to his right-wing Likud party, for voting against the 2005 state budget in a first reading in parliament.
The parliamentary mutiny marked the sharpest threat to Mr Sharon's power since he was re-elected in January 2003 in a crushing victory driven by a shift to the right by voters amid a campaign of Palestinian suicide bombings.
Aides said Mr Sharon would soon approach the centre-left Labour Party and a smaller ultra-Orthdox party to join a "national unity" coalition to prevent his government's collapse. One source said a deal could be sewn up within two weeks.
But political sources said he would have to tread carefully to avoid antagonising Likud party hardliners who oppose talks with Labour Party chief Shimon Peres, whom they revile for his willingness to cede some land occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The departure of Shinui, a secularist party that broke with Mr Sharon in anger over spending pledges he made to a religious faction, left Likud in control of only 40 of parliament's 120 seats, putting Mr Sharon's government in jeopardy.
The prime minister must now rebuild his coalition to avert snap elections two years ahead of schedule and an indefinite delay to his plan for removing all settlements from Gaza and a limited number from the West Bank.
Mr Sharon aims to remove all 21 settlements in Gaza but only four of 120 in the West Bank in 2005 under a plan backed by the United States.