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ISRAEL - Her parents' house in the northern town of Kyriat Shimona was hit by a Katyusha rocket in the war last summer. Two of her brothers were fighting in Lebanon when it happened.
Judy Giladi travelled from Jerusalem to a half-rally, half-concert in Tel Aviv last night to register her anger at Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, and Amir Peretz, his Defence Minister, remaining in office after the failures of a conflict that had risked the lives of her family.
"We want them to take responsibility for what happened," said 31-year-old Giladi. "I don't believe we can face Hizbollah again with this leadership and I think we will have to face them again."
Giladi backs the left-wing Meretz party but at least one of her brothers - also at last night's huge protest - voted for Kadima, Olmert's party.
"We are from all parties," Giladi said of her travelling companions. Certainly that was a theme of the evening when tens of thousands paraded their anger at Olmert.
Many of the protesters were young, secular Israelis wearing T-shirts with the slogan "Go Home", but there were many views from across the political range.
From right-wing West Bank settlers to Uri Avnery, the veteran peace champion and left-wing activist, all appeared united behind a message displayed on one banner: "Olmert, you don't deserve us".
As a mix of Blowin' in the Wind, mainstream Israeli tunes and an unmistakable anti-occupation song by the leftist David Bloza blared through the loudspeakers, Rabbi Ari Evrin, 31, a right-winger who emigrated to Beit Shemesh from Canada two years ago, said: "You have everyone across the spectrum here, right and left, including Arabs. The whole country wants Olmert out."
Asked who he would prefer as Prime Minister, the rabbi said: "Me. I could do this job better than Olmert."
But yesterday's demonstration - many of the banners calling for "elections now" - was hardly going to push out the embattled Olmert, who is digging in after widespread calls for his resignation.
Olmert's hopes of surviving, at least in the short term, were boosted after Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni failed to trigger a revolt among party members in the Knesset.
Livni's decision not to inject more menace into the call by resigning herself attracted widespread criticism in the Israeli media, which delivered a near-unanimous verdict that the minister, until now the one undisputed rising star in Israeli politics, had weakened her position by remaining in the Cabinet.
While saying that Livni was, "essentially honourable and respectable, and it's a shame there aren't more like her", Haaretz columnist Yossi Verter excoriated Livni's failure to take the ultimate gamble.
"It's unpleasant to see such a senior minister finding her way amid tangled verbiage meant to get her off the hook with a vestige of self-respect.
"She had the fate of the Government and of the Prime Minister in her hands. If Livni had resigned the day after the report was released, it's reasonable to assume that Olmert would no longer be Prime Minister - and Livni would have become the alternative."
There was widespread media speculation that Olmert will sack Livni at a time of his choosing and possibly replace her with Shaul Mofaz, the hard-line former Defence Minister and Army chief of staff.
Olmert's other card in seeking to survive the withering criticism in the first report by the Winograd Commission on the Lebanon war is the unwillingness of Kadima's main coalition partners - the hard-right Yisrael Beitenu and the ultra-orthodox Shas - to trigger elections by pulling out of the Government.
It was also not clear whether Labour will seek to remain in the coalition.
Its leader, Peretz, was also severely weakened by the criticisms of the conduct of the war and faces a leadership challenge at the end of the month.
One of the Labour front-runners, Ami Ayalon, has said he would not join a coalition under Olmert. The other front-runner, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, has yet to show his hand.
The fear across the coalition is that any move to trigger elections could pave the way for victory by the right-wing Likud party - under Benjamin Netanyahu - which leads the opinion polls.
Yesterday, Netanyahu broke his four-day silence on the report, telling a special Knesset debate on the war: "Those who failed at war cannot be those who correct the failures."
And Netanyahu said on Army Radio: "It's clear to all that this Government lost the last scrap of public trust, if it ever had any."
"It's clear to all that it should return to the people and let them speak their minds."
Shimon Peres, the vice-premier who has remained studiedly loyal to Olmert since the publication of the report, said in the Knesset debate that the Government had not failed.
"He who doesn't try, doesn't fail," he said.
He dismissed Netanyahu by referring to Olmert's coalition command of more than 75 out of the 120 parliamentary seats.
"A leader, besides having a way, also needs a majority in the Knesset."
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