Israel's new government to take office on Thursday

Israel's new government will take office on Thursday after Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert formed a coalition to carry out his plan to redraw Jewish settlement lines in the occupied West Bank.

"The Knesset will convene on Thursday to vote on the new government's guidelines and to swear it in," a parliamentary official said as coalition deals reached by Olmert's Kadima party and the policy points were filed in the legislature.

Mr Olmert's governing coalition will control at least 67 seats in the 120-seat chamber, a majority narrower than he had sought in several weeks of negotiations with political parties.

He was forced to seek partnerships, signing agreements with centre-left Labour, the ultra-Orthodox Shas faction and a pensioners' party, after centrist Kadima led the pack in the March 28 election but fell short of a parliamentary majority.

Mr Olmert has pledged, in the absence of peace talks with the Palestinians, to dismantle isolated West Bank settlements, bolster main settlement blocs and set Israel's borders by 2010.

Palestinians have said such moves, described by Mr Olmert as "convergence", would annex land they want for a state of their own in the West Bank as well as the Gaza Strip, which Israel quit last year. Handing out Cabinet portfolios to Kadima's senior members, Mr Olmert tapped 82-year-old Shimon Peres as one of his deputies and named him minister of regional development.