Far-right Israelis regroup to wreck pull-out

The Israeli police and army are braced for an increase in tension after last week's confrontation which saw a group of demonstrators ejected from a derelict hotel which had become a centre of fierce resistance against Israel's withdrawal from the area.

"We're much uplifted by what happened with the government needing thousands of soldiers to remove just 85 people from the hotel," one of the leading anti-disengagement protestors, Nadia Matar, told Scotland on Sunday. "This is just a taste of what's to come."

Last Thursday, the government sealed off the Gaza Strip for 24 hours and called in the army to forcibly remove dozens of Jewish extremists from a hotel near one of the Jewish settlements.

The order was issued after a group of extremists took over an Arab house in a Palestinian village near the Gush Katif settlement bloc in southern Gaza, resulting in violent clashes with local Palestinians and Israeli security forces.

As violent demonstrations against the Gaza pullout escalate across the country - including protesters spreading oil and nails across the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway - hundreds of supporters from the West Bank have in recent weeks joined the settlers in Gaza.

Renamed the Stronghold by the Sea, the Palm Beach resort with its spectacular view of the Mediterranean had become the adopted home of a coalition of far-right groups opposing disengagement. It was also reported some of the hotel's new residents had links to the outlawed Kach movement, a Jewish extremist organisation designated a terrorist group by the US State Department.

But with the hotel now closed to public access, Matar said the plan was for "100 people to be in each home of every settler when the soldiers come to evacuate them".

When queried as to how this would happen given the government had stated it would seal off Gaza again without notice, Matar said the protestors would rely "on the family and friends of settlers to join them in their homes".

"Thursday's action has proved just how impossible it will be to uproot entire communities here in Gaza," she added. "And the moment Gaza is sealed off indefinitely, hundreds of thousands of our supporters from all over the country will make their way here and tear down the fence [separating Gaza from the rest of Israel]."

Some of the local Gaza settlers have resented the hardline action of their West Bank supporters. "But not all of those who have come here from the West Bank to help our cause are violent," said Eran Sternberg, a spokesman for the Gush Katif regional council, when asked if this had become a problem. "And whatever you say, Sharon seems only interested in creating violent situations that make us settlers look bad." On Friday, the Israeli military lifted its closure of Jewish settlements in Gaza but kept some limitations in place to prevent an influx of equipment and goods that might be used for another confrontation with security forces.

Most of those behind the protests are Zionists who vehemently oppose Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's controversial plan to withdraw more than 8,000 settlers from Gaza and several hundred others from four settlements in the West Bank, beginning on August 15.

Israeli sources said Thursday's action was also an attempt by Sharon to project an image of strength at a time when polls showed public support for his disengagement plan was wavering. Sharon strongly defended his plan last Thursday, declaring it was time to "leave Gaza in order to build Israel".

The prime minister harshly condemned the extremists "who are trying to intimidate Israeli society and tear it to shreds by means of violence against both Jews and Arabs, injuring Muslim sensibilities and symbols, hooliganism and refusal [of army orders].

"We will deal harshly with these phenomena, because they threaten our very existence here as a Jewish and democratic state," he added.

With less than six weeks to go before disengagement, the Israeli parliament will vote next Wednesday on a bill submitted by a right-wing MP calling for withdrawal to be postponed for a year.

If the bill is voted down, it will mean no other similar bills will be debated before the start of the operation.

And as politicians make their last attempt to thwart the pullout, constructors are frantically building temporary homes in a number of areas adjacent to the Gaza Strip in readiness for the settlers.

Meanwhile, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has invited Hamas militants to join his cabinet to help ensure a peaceful handover. Abbas extended the offer after Hamas demanded a special committee be formed to oversee the transfer of powers in Gaza. Abbas invited them to join his Cabinet instead.