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Pullout opponents admit defeat

Plans for a mass march are abandoned as about 10,000 hard-line protesters are turned back by Israeli security forces.

JERUSALEM - Opponents of Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip abandoned their efforts to stage a thousands-strong protest march in support of Jewish settlers late Wednesday. As the demonstrators headed home, the antipullout movement appeared increasingly chaotic with the withdrawal less than a month away.

About midnight, at the end of a third hot day of fruitless negotiations with police and the military, organizers told the marchers that buses were waiting to take them home, marking an end of the demonstration.

The protesters were seeking to block the abandonment of 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and removal of 8,500 settlers. They had marched to Kfar Maimon, 12 miles from the Gaza Strip, before Israeli security forces blocked their way and kept them penned up away from the Gaza frontier.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered the unilateral disengagement from Gaza because of the cost in blood and turmoil caused by Israel's maintenance of 8,500 Jewish settlers living among 1.4-million Palestinians.

Sharon has faced an intense battle over the issue from hard-liners in his own Likud Party and the settlers, whom he once supported. Israel won the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war.

Bentsi Lieberman, settlers' council head, told more than 10,000 followers - surrounded by twice that many security forces - that plans for a mass march were over. Buses began taking some demonstrators away, while others sat down under the stars.

Earlier, the withdrawal opponents suffered another blow when Parliament overwhelmingly rejected a last-ditch proposal to delay by a year the scheduled mid August withdrawal from Gaza and four West Bank settlements.

"It proved that the government, the Knesset and the public support the disengagement," Sharon said.

In Gaza City, meanwhile, the ruling Fatah party and the opposition Hamas said their armed confrontation of several days is over, but Egyptian mediators said they would stay until after the Israeli pullout to make sure internal fighting does not flare up.

The two rivals are vying for control of Gaza after Israel leaves. Early Wednesday, the sides announced an agreement to take their gunmen off the streets and restore calm. A few hours later, gunmen opened fire on the homes of Palestinian police chief Rashid Abu Shbak and Fatah leader Abdullah Franji. No one was hurt.

Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, called on Hamas members to show restraint. Sufian Abu Zaydeh, a Fatah leader and Cabinet minister, said the situation was under control.

Egypt has played a key role in mediating between rival factions. In an effort to ensure a smooth handover from Israel to the Palestinians, Egypt will send army officers and post one in each Palestinian security unit taking control of areas Israel evacuates, an Egyptian official said. The officers are to arrive this week, he said.

[Last modified July 21, 2005, 00:57:10]