WASHINGTON, May 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has put off a planned visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories due to the domestic political situation in Israel, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Monday.

    "The political situation in Israel has become a bit more complex in the near term," McCormack said at a briefing.

    "There's, obviously, a lot of politics in Israel that they are working through at this point, but we are going to continue our efforts to advance the Israeli-Palestinian track," McCormack said.

    Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been under pressure to resign because his government's handling of the war with Lebanon's Hezbollah last summer.

    Earlier this month, an Israeli panel, led by retired judge Eliyahu Winograd, formally presented an interim report on the Second Lebanon War which blamed Israeli top leaders for "severe failures."

    The scathing Winograd Committee interim report said that Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and former Israel Defense Forces (IDF)Chief of Staff Dan Halutz all failed in their roles during last summer's Israel-Hezbollah conflict.