Thousands of Israelis rally against Gaza pullout

1.00pm

NEVEH DEKALIM, Gaza - Tens of thousands of Israelis rallied on Tuesday in the Gush Katif settlement bloc to protest against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to abandon Jewish enclaves in the Gaza Strip.

The surprisingly high turnout of upwards of 50,000 flag- waving Israelis for an Independence Day march stirred hopes among settlers of defeating a crucial May 2 referendum of Sharon's right-wing Likud party on his "disengagement" plan.

"There are many more people here than we ever expected... People from all over Israel have come here to say 'we are not disengaging, we are sticking by you'," settler Dror Vanunu, of the southern Gaza settlement Neveh Dekalim, told Reuters.

Israeli media and witnesses said more than 50,000 attended the rally and that thousands more were delayed by traffic jams that choked the narrow border roads and checkpoints into Gaza.

In an attempt to sway the hardliners, Sharon stressed in a television interview that he would take tougher action against militants after a Gaza pullout, and that US-Israeli ties could be harmed if his party fails to pass the plan.

Sharon's plan calls for uprooting all Jewish settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank, but polls show it is far from guaranteed to be approved by the traditionally pro-settler Likud party. A survey on Friday showed 49 per cent of the party's 200,000 members in favour and 39.5 per cent against.

Sharon, whose plan was endorsed by US President George W Bush during a visit to the White House this month, could suffer a major blow should the proposal be voted down.

But a senior official dismissed a report on the Haaretz newspaper website that Sharon had threatened to resign if he lost the referendum. "He's not going to resign, because he's not going to lose," the official told Reuters.

Sharon was still confident on Tuesday the plan would be carried out.

"I hope that during the next Independence Day we will be in the middle of the disengagement process," Sharon told a military ceremony.

Sharon said in recorded television interviews broadcast on Tuesday that a Gaza withdrawal was essential to improving Israeli security after three and a half years of fighting with Palestinians.

Israel's reactions to attacks by Palestinian militants would be "much stronger" after a Gaza withdrawal, Sharon said.

If the Gaza plan is rejected, "this would sully our relations with the United States,...(and) would definitely harm the prestige of President Bush," Sharon told another Israeli network, Channel 2.

Bush broke with decades of US policy, and enraged Palestinians on April 14, by endorsing an Israeli bid to keep some West Bank land captured in the 1967 Middle East War, in a joint appearance with Sharon in Washington.

Palestinians see Sharon's plan as a ruse to annex large swathes of West Bank territory they want for a state.

In continuing confrontations in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinian militants in a confrontation in the town of Tulkarm and critically wounded a nine-year-old boy in the head, Palestinian medics said.

Israeli military sources said the killed men belonged to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two militant groups responsible for a campaign of suicide bombings that has killed hundreds. Hamas said both militants belonged to its ranks.

The latest deaths bring to at least 34 the number of Palestinians killed by Israel troops since the assassination of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi on April 17. Militants have killed one Israeli border policeman over the same period.

- REUTERS