AL QUDS, Feb 19: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon presented his proposals to evacuate most of the Gaza Strip settlements as part of his controversial disengagement plan to a team of senior US envoys on Thursday. After the talks with Sharon, the envoys then met with senior Palestinian officials, who expressed their misgivings about the project.

During a morning three-hour meeting, Sharon presented the "main concepts" of his plan to the US assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, William Burns, and White House officials Steve Hadley and Elliot Abrams, his office said.

Sharon reiterated Israel's commitment to the Middle East peace roadmap and both sides "agreed to continue an intensive dialogue" ahead of his visit to Washington, the statement added.

Media reports said Sharon was likely to head for Washington at the end of March. Sharon has said he will start implementing his unilateral "disengagement" plan in the next few months if there is no progress on the US-backed roadmap peace process with the Palestinians.

The plan would involve the evacuation of 17 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and several others in the West Bank while strengthening Israel's control over other larger West Bank settlements. Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, who met with the delegation Wednesday, told public radio the officials were "not opposed to the evacuation of settlements".

"They want the Israeli plan to be integrated into the roadmap ... On the other hand, they don't want settlers from the Gaza Strip to be transferred to Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), or the annexation of territories there in exchange for an evacuation of Gaza," he said.

Palestinian officials said they had taken the chance to express their misgivings about the disengagement plan in their subsequent meeting with the Americans at the US consulate in east Jerusalem.

"We let them know that the West Bank and Gaza Strip constitute a single geographic unit which should not be divided," negotiations minister Saeb Erakat told AFP after the meeting, which was also attended by Palestinian premier Ahmed Qorei's chief of staff, Hassan Abu Libdeh.

Meanwhile, the radical Palestinian group Hamas denied it was seeking to take over control of the Gaza Strip, should the evacuation go ahead. "Israeli propaganda about Hamas' strength and the fact it could take things into it own hands and marginalise the Palestinian Authority is meant to confuse people and plant the seeds of discord," top Hamas leader Ismail Hanieh told AFP.

In Gaza itself, a group of armed men forced their way into the office of Ibrahim Abu al-Naja, the vice president of the Palestinian parliament, in the southern town of Khan Yunis and opened fire. Naja told AFP that he had emerged unscathed. The attack came a day after a group of armed men opened fire on a restaurant in the northern West Bank town of Jenin where Palestinian health minister Jawad al-Tibi was eating.

In the northern West Bank, Israeli troops arrested 11 Palestinians and demolished two houses belonging to Palestinian militants, the army said. One house belonged to a Palestinian accused of trying to send a suicide bomber last August, while the second belonged to a member of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement who was involved in several shooting attacks against Israelis, it said.

The Israeli army also expelled a Palestinian militant from the West Bank town of Ramallah to Gaza, Palestinian security sources said. Louay Tayssir Salameh of the secular Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has been jailed in Israel for the last year without trial. Since early December, the army has deported 14 other Palestinians held under similar conditions after receiving the green light from Israel's Supreme Court. -AFP