JERUSALEM, Feb 11: Supporters of Jewish settlers attacked Binyamin Netanyahu at a wedding on Thursday but the former Israeli prime minister escaped unhurt. A small group opposed to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw Israelis from the Gaza Strip shouted at Mr Netanyahu: "Murderer, your day will come", the daily Yedioth Ahronoth said.

The newspaper said a plate was thrown at Mr Netanyahu, now finance minister, at the wedding in the ultra-Orthodox village of Kfar Habad, near Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv, and a police spokesman said a tyre on his car was slashed.

Wedding guests held back the assailants as security guards whisked away Mr Netanyahu, 55, in another vehicle. "We believe that the heckling was carried out by up to three minors although nobody has been arrested yet," a police spokesman said.

He said officials would be examining camera film and video footage of the wedding to try to identify the attackers. Rightists regularly heckled and threatened politicians in the days leading up to the 1995 assassination of then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. -Reuters