Israeli hardliners plan guerrilla war

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei (R) and former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad are seen at the West Bank city of Ramallah Monday. Israel Monday banned former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad, whose comments have in the past infuriated Jews, from entering Jerusalem while visiting the West Bank. PHOTO: AFP

Around 300 demonstrators were arrested late Monday as ultra-nationalist opponents of the so-called disengagement plan blocked dozens of roads across the country in a game of cat-and-mouse with the police during rush hour.

Drivers were left fuming as huge traffic jams built up, but the organisers said Tuesday they had only just started.

Earlier more than one-fourth of Gaza Strip settler families have agreed to relocate to southern Israel, a settler leader said Tuesday the biggest crack so far in the formidable wall of opposition to the Gaza pullout this summer.

But while some settlers were beginning to reconcile themselves to the notion of being uprooted, die-hard opponents claimed victory after snarling traffic at more than 100 intersections with burning tires and sit-down strikes Monday evening.

Their objective: to tie up police for hours in a dress rehearsal for diversionary operations designed to scuttle the evacuation.

Baruch Marzl, one of the ringleaders, said he hoped the government would be persuaded to abandon its plan to leave the occupied Palestinian territory with more direct action.

"The operation yesterday was a huge success, and if we continue with this kind of determination we will be able to paralyse not only the traffic but the whole country and put an end to this whole plot," Marzl told Israeli radio.

Another of the protest organisers said police had shown a reluctance to crack down on the activists, which boded well for future attempts to block the pullout from Gaza which is due to begin in mid-August.

"The police did not act violently against us yesterday which shows that they understand that Jews cannot expel other Jews from their home," said Orit Spitz.

Soldiers and police who will take part in the operation to uproot the 8,000 Gaza settlers will be unarmed, hoping that sheer weight of numbers will overwhelm the opposition of the settlers.

However the events of Monday night appeared to demonstrate the limitations of manpower alone, especially in the face of well-organised protests.

Meanwhile, Israeli security services revealed Monday they had arrested nine people suspected of plotting to attack the third holiest site in Islam as Jewish militants stepped up their bid to wreck the Gaza Strip pullout.

News of last month's arrests emerged as a major operation was staged to prevent ultra-nationalists from bringing the nation's traffic to a standstill.

The arrests of the nine, who have all been released, followed an operation led by the Shin Beth internal security agency on suspicion that a group intended to buy one or more anti-tank missiles to attack Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, police sources said.