The Prime Minister's Office issued a strongly worded statement refuting a front-page report by Haaretz claiming a secret withdrawal plan had been formulated by Shimon Peres and Ehud Olmert.

"In response to the main headline in this morning's Ha'aretz, we do not know of any plan as described in the article," the statement said. "We would like to clarify that such a plan has not been considered, nor is it being raised for discussion in any forum."

Attacking author Akiva Eldar, the statement concluded: "We express our amazement at this erroneous article, which was published without any attempt being made to ascertain from us its accuracy."