Israeli lawmakers approve withdrawal from Gaza

7.55am

JERUSALEM - The Israeli parliament has approved Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to pull troops and settlements out of Gaza and part of the West Bank.

Rightist Israelis accused Sharon of treason on Tuesday as parliament gathered to vote on the first pullout of settlers from occupied land Palestinians want as part of a future state.

Anti-pullout nationalists, many of them religious settler women and children, rallied outside a Knesset cordoned off by police, holding up placards saying "Sharon is a traitor" and "Soldiers, disobey orders to evacuate us".

Palestinians say Sharon's plan, which will also evacuate a few hundred of 230,000 settlers from the West Bank, will kill off a long-stalled peace process and deny them a viable state in Gaza and the West Bank.

Despite an unravelling of his coalition, increasing death threats and fears of civil strife, Sharon prepared to put his US-backed "Disengagement Plan" to a vote at after a tumultuous Knesset debate.

Sharon, once the godfather of Israeli settlement on lands occupied in the 1967 Israeli-Arab war, said a pullout from Gaza would solidify Israel's security and allow it to cement its grip on parts of the West Bank with larger Jewish enclaves.

The Knesset vote does not guarantee that Sharon's plan will be fulfilled. His divided cabinet must vote to launch each of four phases of withdrawal, starting in March.

If implemented, it would be Israel's first removal of settlements from occupied territories since 1982, when the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt.

Polls show most Israelis see Gaza, a desert strip where 8000 settlers live in fortified enclaves amid 1.3 million Palestinians, as a liability that Israel should be rid of.

The latest opinion survey, published by Israel's largest daily Yedioth Ahronoth on Tuesday, found 65 per cent in favour of "disengagement" and 26 per cent opposed.

- REUTERS