TEL AVIV, July 20: Dozens of Jewish extremists opposed to Ariel Sharon's Gaza pullout plan want to see the prime minister dead and "someone could pull the trigger" on him at any time, an Israeli security chief said on Tuesday.

Shin Bet head Avi Dichter spoke to a closed-door hearing in parliament after tightening security around Mr Sharon earlier this month over the proposed evacuation of soldiers and settlers from the Gaza Strip by the end of next year.

"The incitement is already here, some of it out in the open and some beneath the surface," Dichter told the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, according to a committee source.

He said there were several extremists "supported by a circle of 150 to 200 people, who...according to information that we have, wish for the prime minister to die". "I know that I am already at a stage that any time now someone can pull the trigger," Mr Dichter said.

But asked by a lawmaker why he had not arrested any suspects, Mr Dichter replied that he lacked sufficient evidence. Settlers responded angrily to Mr Dichter's remarks, some accusing him of smearing an entire community of some 200,000 Jews who live scattered among two million Palestinians in the West Bank.

Mr Dichter said the "extremist core" posing a threat to Sharon lived mainly in hilltop outposts dotted throughout the West Bank, including some suspected of past involvement in vigilante attacks against Palestinians.

Many, he said, were armed with handguns, while some extremists had been suspected of stealing weapons from soldiers serving in the West Bank. "The ideological basis of these extremists is revenge, anti-establishment, and their aim is to stop the disengagement plan," Mr Dichter said.

Yehoshua Mor-Yosef, spokesman for the settlers' mainstream YESHA council, commented: "(Dichter) should be aware that cynical political use can be made of what he says." He said settlers would continue to seek to upset Mr Sharon's plans to evacuate Jewish enclaves in Gaza "by brains and not by brawn". -Reuters