TEL AVIV - More than 20,000 Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv late Saturday, demanding that the government back a full-scale independent inquiry into the Lebanon war and urging Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign.

The protestors thronged to Rabin Square in the heart of Israel's commercial capital at the request of the Movement for Quality Government and reservists who have slammed the government and army leadership for its conduct of the war.

Organisers, who claimed tens of thousands took part, accused Olmert of trying to duck his responsibilities over the month-long conflict by agreeing so far only to a public inquiry firmly under his control.

The crowd -- numbered at 25,000 by police -- held Israeli flags and homemade banners demanding a state commission headed by a judge and urging the premier, Defence Minister Amir Peretz and chief of staff Dan Halutz to resign.

"Olmert, Peretz, Halutz Resign" and "What Do You Have to Hide?" cried placards. The banner across the speakers' rostrum called for an immediate state commission into the failures of the war.

"We want a government that doesn't close its eyes, that takes responsibility for the whole situation," Eliad Shraga, founder of the politically independent Movement for Quality Government, told the crowd.

"Olmert, Peretz and Halutz are dead men walking," shouted former education minister Yossi Sarid, a member of the left-wing opposition Meretz party, to be greeted by enthusiastic cheers.

"If you don't go home, Israeli democracy will send you home," he added.

The Israeli government has ridden a tide of discontent over the 34-day war that failed to achieve its main objectives, left 162 Israelis dead and saw the north bombarded by more than 4,000 Hezbollah rocket attacks.

Olmert has claimed that the establishment of a state commission -- the most powerful type of inquiry in Israel -- would "competely paralyse" the leadership at a time of external threats, including from arch-foe Iran.

A group of army reservists, blasting military "indecisiveness", unclear war aims, confused orders, food, fuel and water shortages, and the slowness to launch a major ground assault, have spearheaded calls for a full inquiry.

So far protests for a state inquiry, however, have yet to galvanise the momentum that toppled the government after the 1973 Yom Kippur war.

Israeli singers belted out pop songs in between speeches denouncing the shortcomings and demands for a state commission delivered by relatives of those who were killed and sympathisers of the Quality Government group.

Avi, a retired businessman and army veteran, said his country had not learned its lesson from the Yom Kippur War. He urged Olmert and those responsible for the failures to resign, but complained about what he said was a poor turnout at the protest.

"Citizens can change things if they care. Two weeks ago this place was full but now it's pretty empty here," he told AFP, referring to a rally on August 31 calling for the release of two soldiers captured by Hezbollah on July 12, the incident that sparked the war.

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