JERUSALEM, Sept 13: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced a surprise challenge on Monday to his plan to expedite a pullout from Gaza when Benjamin Netanyahu, his main rival in the Likud party, called for a referendum on the issue.
Analysts saw Netanyahu's bid, coming right after an angry rally by 70,000 opponents of the plan, as an attempt to delay a withdrawal of settlers and soldiers that the Israeli leader hopes to complete by the end of 2005.
"I propose, not as a condition, but as something I believe can preserve national unity, an accelerated referendum process in which one question will be posed: 'Do you support or oppose the government's decision for a phased disengagement?'" said Finance Minister Netanyahu, a former prime minister.
Netanyahu, Sharon's rival on the right of Likud, said he was confident Israelis, in line with opinion polls showing strong support for quitting Gaza, would vote in favour of withdrawing.
But a senior political source, who declined to be identified, said: "When Sharon examined the (possibility of a referendum), he saw it wouldn't fit into his deadline and would take at least six months to arrange."
Political sources said Sharon remained opposed to a referendum on ending Israel's 37-year-old occupation of Gaza and would stick to his intention to win cabinet and preliminary parliamentary approval by November 3 for a pullout. Around 8,000 settlers live in hard-to-defend enclaves among 1.3 million Palestinians in the tiny coastal territory.
THREE MILITANTS KILLED: Israel's military pursued a campaign against Palestinian militants, killing three members of a group linked to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction in an air strike in the West Bank city of Jenin.
One of those killed was the local deputy leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which has been involved in a four-year-old revolt against Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, residents said.
Thousands of Palestinians shouted for revenge against Israel and gunmen fired rifles into the air at a funeral march after the Monday afternoon attack in Jenin, witnesses said.
Netanyahu spoke out with tensions soaring between Sharon, a former champion of the settlers, and rightist hardliners who packed a busy square in Jerusalem on Sunday night and denounced the Gaza withdrawal plan, calling Sharon a "dictator". Hours beforehand, Sharon had accused far-right leaders of trying to spark a civil war in Israel with their calls on settlers to resist being uprooted from Gaza. -Reuters
