Facing unrelenting criticism from Jewish settlers, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday nothing would deter him from pushing forward with his plan to pull out of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.
Also yesterday, scattered fighting in the Gaza Strip killed at least five Palestinian militants.
PHOTO: AP
Sharon, a longtime patron of the settlements, spoke a day after holding a tense meeting with settler leaders that ended with battle lines drawn between the two sides.
Sharon has pledged to put his "disengagement plan" to a parliamentary vote on Oct. 25 and, despite a rift in his hard-line Likud Party, he is expected to prevail with the backing of dovish opposition parties.
Sharon told reporters yesterday that he is required to bring his plan to parliament and he intends to follow through, despite pressure from the settlers.
"The responsibility of mana-ging the issues of the country, the responsibility of the future of the country, is not the concern of just one group. It is the concern of the entire nation, and this burden is placed on my shoulders, and this is how I plan to behave," he said.
Settler leaders called their meeting on Sunday with their former ally "disgraceful" and pressed for a national referendum, while pledging to torpedo the withdrawal.
"The prime minister is unreachable," settler leader Yehoshua Mor-Yosef told Army Radio on yesterday. "I admit that we are speaking disrespectfully about the prime minister, but we are reacting to our own hurt feelings."
About 8,200 settlers live in 21 Gaza settlements, among 1.3 million Palestinians. Sharon decided that the settlers cannot remain in the hostile, poverty-stricken seaside territory. His plan also calls for evacuating four tiny enclaves in the northern part of the West Bank next summer.
Sharon says his plan will increase Israel's security after four years of fighting with the Palestinians and help consolidate control over large chunks of the West Bank. The settlers accuse Sharon of caving in to Palestinian violence, warning that dismantling any settlements sets a dangerous precedent.
The settlers, as well as hard-line allies within Sharon's government, have been pushing the prime minister to hold a referendum on the withdrawal. He has rejected that, calling it a delaying tactic by his opponents. Legal experts say the process for holding the vote could take months.
Current polls show about two-thirds of Israelis support the pullout, despite large, well-funded and publicized protests by the settlers and their backers. Sharon has already lost two separate votes within his Likud Party on his plan.
Fighting in Gaza has increased in recent months as Israel and Palestinian militants each try to declare victory ahead of the planned Israeli withdrawal, and violence continued yesterday.
Two Palestinian gunmen who infiltrated Israel from Gaza early yesterday were killed after a lengthy gunbattle with Israeli soldiers, the military said.
The gunmen cut through the fence that surrounds Gaza and reached an orchard just 300m from an Israeli community when the gunbattle broke out, the military said. Troops shot and killed both men, one of whom blew up, apparently because he was wearing an explosives belt, the army said.
The militant Hamas group claimed responsibility for the infiltration and said the two gunmen belonged to the group.
The army also killed two militants who planted an explosive device in southern Gaza, near the border with Egypt, the military said. Islamic Jihad said the men belonged to the group.
In another attack near the Kissufim crossing into Israel, two militants attacked a military vehicle and injured one soldier, the army said. The troops returned fire, and apparently killed the two men, the army said. Islamic Jihad claimed that one of its militants was killed in the fighting.
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