Sharon survives Likud leadership vote

Palestinian students from a Hamas-run school north of Gaza City stage a protest yesterday against a recent Israeli airstrike, which injured eight women, three children and several elderly people. Israel continued to launch more air strikes on the Gaza Strip despite a pledge by Hamas to halt rocket attacks. Sign reads, ``No to terrorism, yes to education.'' PHOTO: AFP

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has narrowly survived a challenge to his leadership of the governing Likud Party, but his troubles weren't over yesterday as opponents of his Gaza Strip pullout vowed to continue their campaign to oust him and quash his peace efforts.

The Israeli military, meanwhile, continued its offensive against Palestinian militants, with air strikes in Gaza and large-scale arrests in the West Bank. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Israel would continue its pinpoint killings of militants, and said a militant leader's call for a halt to rocket attacks against Israel was inadequate.

Hamas said the arrests were motivated by a desire to weaken the group ahead of Palestinian national elections.

Sharon's 104-vote margin in the vote on Monday by the 3,000-member Likud central committee was a slap in the face of party hardliners who wanted to punish him for the Gaza pullout. The man who led the challenge, former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said committee members caved in to the pressure of a "tyrant," without mentioning Sharon by name.

The ballot was ostensibly over a procedural issue: whether to hold elections for party leader in April, as scheduled, or move up the primary to November. But both Sharon and Netanyahu said the ballot amounted to a vote of confidence in the prime minister, who has expressed hope the pullout would jumpstart long-stalled peace talks that would ultimately lead to the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Sharon did not immediately react to the vote. But Likud lawmaker Roni Bar-On told Israel Radio that "the argument over whether or not Sharon's vision was the Likud's vision is over with this vote."

Netanyahu, who wants to replace Sharon as prime minister, disagreed.

In a statement conceding defeat, he predicted he would prevail in the primaries by tapping the dissatisfaction of Likud members who think Sharon has betrayed the party's nationalist roots.

The close vote on Monday demonstrated how bitterly divided the party remains, with many members opposed to Sharon's concessions to the Palestinians, he said.

"I expect to see this camp with all its force when it fights for the path of the Likud in the primaries and I have no doubt in the second phase we will win and the Likud will win," Netanyahu said.

He later said that some committee members voted "under the pressure of the governing tyrant."

Before the ballot, Sharon aides had suggested he would quit Likud if defeated and form a new party -- a move that could strengthen Israel's political center and improve chances of a Mideast peace deal because Sharon is popular among the general public.

The prospect of a new party continued to loom yesterday because Sharon's victory was so slim.

Labor Party members of his coalition government have also threatened to quit and force elections before the November 2006 timetable if peace efforts stall.

"If Sharon continues on this path, we clearly won't act for early elections," Communications Minister Dalia Itzik of the Labor party told Channel 1 TV. "But if he is rattled by the central committee and changes his path, we will of course work to bring him down."

Israeli aircraft fired missiles yesterday at three access roads in northern Gaza leading to staging areas for rocket attacks, the military said. Palestinian officials said one missile destroyed a bridge. Israeli helicopters also fired two missiles in the town of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.