The law, which had the backing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, passed with 65 lawmakers in favour and 33 against in a late night vote. There were no abstentions.

Under the new legislation any government signing a peace agreement ceding the annexed territories of east Jerusalem or the Golan, or any other sovereign territory within Israel itself, would be unable to implement the treaty without the approval of parliament and a national referendum.

It would not affect territorial concessions within the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, which Israel has not annexed.

Netanyahu, who is currently engaged in efforts to revive stalled peace negotiations with the Palestinians, praised the passage of the law.

"Any peace agreement demands a broad national agreement and this law provides this," a statement from his office said after the vote.

"The Israel public is involved, informed and responsible and I trust that on the day of decision they would back a peace agreement that answers the national interests, security needs of the State of Israel," he said, according to the statement.

But opponents accused Netanyahu of pushing the bill, initiated by a member of his Likud party, to give him a way out if he finds himself pressured by world opinion into a peace treaty with the Palestinians or Syria with which he is uncomfortable.

Speaking at the start of the televised debate, Haim Oron, head of the left-wing opposition Meretz party, described the initiative as a "trick" by the right to hobble any government peace attempt.

The vote was on an amendment to existing legislation passed in January 1999 in the final days of Netanyahu's previous government.

That legislation has the same basic premise but fails to spell out the mechanism for a referendum, which has never been held in Israel before.

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni, whose Kadima party commands 28 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, ordered her members of parliament to vote against the amendment.

"We have here a weak prime minister for whom it is convenient that he is hindered," the Ynet website quoted her as saying. "We're not talking here about a desire to listen to the will of the people but about setting up a veto on decisions of the government."

East Jerusalem was annexed shortly after the 1967 Middle East war, while the Golan Heights plateau was formally annexed in 1981. Both were captured in the conflict.

Any pullout from mainly Arab east Jerusalem would only occur as part of a peace deal, but talks between Israel and the Palestinians are currently suspended over a dispute about Jewish settlement building.

Among possible solutions for an eventual agreement with the Palestinians could be an exchange of Israeli land for tracts of the West Bank populated by Jewish settlers.

Any withdrawal from the Golan would only be likely as part of a negotiated peace treaty with Syria, but both countries remain technically at war and no talks are under way.

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