In quotes: Sharon leaves Likud

Ariel Sharon has faced opposition from within his Likud party

Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has decided to leave his Likud party and form a new centrist bloc to fight early elections.

Correspondents have described the move as a political earthquake within Israeli politics.

Key players in the region offer their reaction to the news.

Saeb Erekat, Chief Palestinian negotiator

What is happening in Israel today is very significant. I believe it is an eruption of a political volcano in Israel.

I believe it is restructuring the politics in Israel. I don't think it is happening because of economic, social, religious, or educational problems.

Saeb Erekat sees Mr Sharon's move as a new start

It is happening because of us, [the] Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and I have not seen anything more significant in Israel since 1967, when the occupation came to my home town [of] Jericho.

Usually we say this is an internal Israeli matter. Today I cannot say that. Because when somebody sneezes in Tel Aviv I get the flu in Jericho.

But I hope that once the dust settles down in Israel, that we will have a partner who is willing to re-engage in the end game, the end of conflict, in order to achieve the treaty of peace between Palestinians and Israelis, which I believe is "do-able".

Tommy Lapid, Leader, Shinui party

Likud has 38 members in parliament. And now that he's dividing it he's creating a new map in Israeli political life.

And there will be a very strong centrist political force, Sharon's party and my party.

Yitzhak Herzog, Labour party

What we will see now in Israel will be, I will say, a pool of 18 members of the Knesset, with a couple of parties fighting for those 18 members - namely, the centre of Israeli politics.

This development opens the way, opens the door, for a fascinating coalition of moderate forces after the election Yitzhak Herzog Labour

Sharon will shift in between all of these parties to try and accumulate voters for his own new party.

The new development of the split in Likud will help us become perhaps the biggest party in the next election.

This development opens the way, opens the door, for a fascinating coalition of moderate forces after the election.

The developments could lead to an enhancement of the peace process, clearly.

Nabil Shaath, Palestinian Deputy PM

The peace process was put on a backburner until next November.

Now that the elections [are] at the end of February, that will shorten the distance and will coincide with our own elections on 25 January.

So I think it will give us a better chance of resuming the peace process earlier than what would have been had the elections been delayed until November.

Uzi Landau, Likud

The very meaning of Sharon's statement is that he is planning far-reaching concessions in the future and he knows that within Likud that is a non-starter.

We will do whatever possible to stop it. Mr Sharon means to withdraw from the Golan Heights, from the Jordan Valley, from Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and for the re-division of Jerusalem.

We won't make it possible. As Mr Sharon leaves us, this is a new start for Likud. New hope for Likud with clean politics, with ideology, with pragmatism.