Trooth

The Israeli prime minister says he will not resign despite a round rejection of his plan to pull out of the Gaza Strip in a poll of his party's members.
Exit polls show that about 61% of the Likud party voted against Ariel Sharon's proposals.

Mr Sharon said he would "respect" the outcome of the vote but indicated he might not be ready to drop his plans.

Palestinian gunmen killed a pregnant Jewish settler and her four young daughters during Sunday's vote.

Mr Sharon's proposals call for Israeli troops and 7,500 Jewish settlers to leave the Gaza Strip.

Following Sunday's vote, Mr Sharon said: "I receive the results of the vote with sorrow but I will respect them."

However he refrained from declaring his Gaza plans dead.

"The Israeli people did not elect me to sit on my hands for four years," he said.

The prime minister said he would consult Likud and its coalition partners in the coming days.

The White House said on Sunday night it stuck by its support for Mr Sharon's Gaza plan.

Violence mars vote

Some analysts said opposition to Mr Sharon's plan may have been boosted by the killings of the pregnant Jewish woman and her four daughters aged between two and 11.

It was the worst attack on Gaza settlers for two years.

According to one report, Tali Hatuell, who was eight months pregnant, was driving into Israel to campaign against the Sharon plan when her car was ambushed near the Kissufim crossing between Gaza and Gush Katif.

Israel later killed four Palestinian militants in the West Bank town of Nablus and destroyed a Hamas-linked radio station in a missile strike on Gaza City.

Disengagement from Gaza would be seen by some Israelis as a humiliating retreat.

Israeli media are calling the result of the Likud vote one of the worst setbacks in Mr Sharon's long career.

The BBC's David Chazan notes that before the vote Mr Sharon was indicating he would press ahead with the Gaza plan regardless of the outcome.

Opinion polls indicate the majority of Israeli agree it would be in Israel's interest to leave Gaza.

However, there are certain to be questions about Mr Sharon's chances of political survival, our correspondent says, and it is clear he will have to pull off some skilful manoeuvring if he is to stay in power.

'Israel bigger than Likud'

Exit polls put the margin of Mr Sharon's defeat at between 12 and 24 percentage points on a turnout reported to be as low as 35%.

Uzi Landau, the Likud cabinet minister leading the opposition campaign, said it was time to come up with an alternative to the "highly risky" disengagement plan.

"The largest part of Israel thinks that this plan was a mistake and we will have to take another one," he said.

However, Tommy Lapid, whose Shinui Party is part of the governing coalition, said Likud could not determine the fate of the nation and demanded the issue be discussed in cabinet.

'Wrong approach'

Uri Dromi, a spokesman under the former Labour government, said he had backed Mr Sharon's plan and accused the prime minister of making the mistake of first going to his party instead of making the withdrawal, and then debating it in parliament.

"Mr Sharon - and I'm surprised because he's such an experienced and smart politician - that he led himself into such a trap," he told the BBC's Newshour programme.

"He should have gone ahead with this and then brought it to the Knesset."

The Palestinian Authority, which believes Mr Sharon's plan to withdraw from Gaza will lead him to harden his position on the West Bank, responded to the Likud vote by saying that the party had no right to decide on Palestinians' fate.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/3679315.stm

Confed999

Palestinian dream target, the only thing better would have been a day care center.

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