No turning back on Gaza pullout: Sharon

Demonstrators shout slogans during a protest held by international peace activists against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip at the Huwara checkpoint at the entrance of the West Bank city of Nablus yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

"I decided to proceed with the disengagement plan because it is clear that Israel cannot remain in the Gaza Strip forever," his office quoted him as saying.

But Sharon still faces more trouble from rebellious ministers of his own rightist Likud party who led a rally on Sunday night opposing his bid to forge a unity government with the center-left Labour party to carry out the Gaza pullout.

He told army officers on Sunday "he does not intend to go back on the plan in light of the severe and dangerous economic and security situation that Israel would find itself in if it had no diplomatic plan," his office said on Monday.

Sharon's comments came during a day-long protest in which settlers and their right-wing supporters formed a human chain stretching from Jerusalem to the Gaza Strip.

It was another sign of the obstacles Sharon must overcome to implement his US-backed blueprint for "disengaging" from conflict with the Palestinians by removing all 21 settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank by the end of 2005.

Sharon, once considered godfather of the settlement movement, failed to get his own party to support the plan, though he did succeed in winning cabinet approval in early June.

Palestinians welcome an Israeli pullout, but fear the unilateral move does not alter Israel's intention to strengthen its hold on large swathes of West Bank land.

Meanwhile, six Palestinian militants were killed and two bystanders wounded during a raid by Israeli special forces in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem Sunday, Palestinian medics said.

Among the dead was Hani Awidha, local commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's mainstream Fatah movement, the medics said.