TEL AVIV, Dec 3: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stepped up Efforts on Friday to overcome resistance in the ranks of his right-wing Likud party to an enlarged government coalition with the centre-left Labour , ahead of a decisive party meeting.

Sharon brandished the threat of early elections if Likud does not approve of his plan at a central committee vote on December 9, while multiplying contacts with Labour chairman Shimon Peres who local media said on Friday could be offered a "super-deputy premiership."

Quoting sources close to the Israeli premier, the Jerusalem Post daily said that he "intends to ask Labour party chairman Shimon Peres to run the country with him in a new 'super-deputy premiership', that would grant Peres vast powers, beyond those enjoyed by any number two before."

Likud would however keep the key defence, finance and foreign affairs ministries, other media reported. But formal negotiations on a national unity government will only start after Likud gives its green light next Thursday.

After sacking five ministers of the secular Shinui party over a damning parliament vote, thus further narrowing his support in Knesset, Sharon said on Thursday he wanted to bring in Labour and religious parties into the government and see through his 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. But Sharon's media adviser Eyal Arad warned that his boss still had many bridges to cross. "Likud central committee, which voted against Labor participation in the government last August, will have to be convinced," he said.

"Labour's central committee will have to agree and one will have to watch for the ultra-Orthodox parties and their potentially unattainable demands," he added. But Arad also predicted there was "a good chance" that Likud central committee members would revise their prior position and accept a national unity government, provided that one of Likud's traditional right-wing ultra-Orthodox party allies would also be included.

Newly elected Likud chairman, Tzahi Hanegbi, also did not rule out a change of policy on Thursday. "If this doesn't happen, Mr. Sharon will call for early elections in 90 days and ask Likud to support his (Gaza) disengagement plan," Arad said. But calling fresh elections could very well derail the Gaza pullout, which is virulently opposed by right-wing, ultra-nationalist parties and members of Sharon's own Likud.

"The disengagement plan will be implemented. Period," Sharon told reporters Thursday while warning at a Likud meeting later that day that elections would be "bad for Israel and bad for Likud."

Should Sharon be backed by his party's central committee, he will also have to contend with the fact that some in Labour, while supporting disengagement, are uneasy about other policies of the premier's government - especially those of Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In other developments Friday, Israeli troops surrounded a house and killed a leading member of the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the northern West Bank. The circumstances of Mahmud Hammad's death were unclear with Palestinian and Israeli sources giving different accounts.

Palestinian security sources said troops opened fire in his direction as he was surrendering and a witness said he was first wounded and then killed as he was trying to flee the scene.

Palestinian negotiations minister Saeb Erakat condemned the killing saying it "did not contribute to efforts aimed at kick starting the peace process." The latest death brought the overall toll since the September 2000 start of the Palestinian uprising to 4,596, including 3,560 Palestinians and 962 Israelis.

ABBAS: Mahmud Abbas, the favourite to replace the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in January elections, and Islamist factions boycotting the polls are discussing ways to ease the post-Arafat transition, an official of the radical Hamas group said on Friday.