The Israeli government came under increased pressure today with the publication of a newspaper poll showing that for the first time a majority want Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign over perceived failings in his handling of the war with Hizbullah.

A poll in the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper showed 63% want Mr Olmert to go. The defence minister, Amir Peretz, appears even more vulnerable with 74% calling for his resignation, while 54% want the chief of staff, Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, to resign as well.

The poll reflects growing disillusionment within Israeli society about the 34-day conflict with Hizbullah and the fact that the country emerged without any clear victory over the Lebanese militia. The two Israeli soldiers whose capture triggered the conflict are still not free. The war claimed the lives of more than 1,100 people in Lebanon, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Hundreds of protesters, many of them waving Israeli flags, gathered at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem to call for Mr Olmert's resignation. Among them were military reservists who have led criticism of the war as well as Moshe and Riva Moskal, whose son Rafael, a 21-year-old staff sergeant, was killed in the fighting.

"We think this country deserves better leadership," said Mrs Moskal. "The north was bombed and they didn't do anything. They failed there, they failed here," she said. "We feel lost. We feel there is no leadership and we feel as parents that we lost the most precious thing we had.

"We believe it was our duty to raise a voice of protest. This beautiful Israeli nation is strong but has values which seem to have been lost in the last few years."

The crowd at the cemetery gathered around the grave of Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister forced to resign in April 1974 after a wave of much larger protests over the Yom Kippur war a year earlier.

Some reservists have already held days of demonstrations in Jerusalem, setting up a protest tent close to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

Dressed in a T-shirt that read: "Olmert, Peretz, Halutz: take responsibility", one of the leaders of the protest, 27-year-old Nir Hirshman, said their complaint was not about shortages of food and water on the battlefield, but strategic questions over the war itself.

"We don't care about food or water, we care about responsibility, the government's responsibility," he said. "We believe Israel's strength is in its democracy, its morality.

"The reservists protesting here believe that the battle fought by Israel in Lebanon continues here. We want the prime minister to resign and then a state commission of inquiry to determine responsibility."

The test the protestors face is whether their demonstrations will grow large enough to force a change in the government. Mr Olmert believes he can stay in office and has resisted the idea of a state commission of inquiry to investigate the handling of the war, though he was expected to consider the issue again at a cabinet meeting on Sunday.

The newspaper poll suggests, however, that many Israelis are looking elsewhere for new leaders. Politicians from the right, like Binyamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, were some way ahead of Mr Olmert in a list of those considered most suitable to be prime minister. The responses show the rightwing Likud party would probably come out top in an election now and Mr Olmert's centrist Kadima party would slip back.

A total of 74% of those polled rated Mr Olmert's war-time performance as "not good".

"Ladies and gentleman: an upheaval," the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper wrote in a report about its poll. "Upheaval is not the word. Earthquake would be more suitable to describe the condition of the Olmert government 110 days after its term of office began."