Israel could bring forward its planned mid-August withdrawal from the Gaza Strip to avoid further mass protests to disrupt it.
Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert raised the prospect of moving up the timetable for settlement evacuation hours before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's arrival on a mission aimed at keeping the Gaza plan on track.
A march on Gaza's settlements by thousands of demonstrators fizzled out last night after security forces blocked the way, but Israeli police said they arrested about 300 people trying to slip into the occupied strip overnight.
Settlement evacuation is scheduled to begin around August 17th, but officials are increasingly worried about giving ultranationalists any more time to mount disruptive protests and foster resistance among a hard core of Gaza settlers.
A government source said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, also concerned about a surge of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed, might discuss moving up the pullout with Ms Rice.
But the source indicated it would be logistically difficult at this stage to accelerate the process. Mr Sharon, who has billed his plan as "disengagement" from conflict with the Palestinians, originally planned evacuation of Gaza's 21 settlements to begin on July 22nd but delayed it to avoid a Jewish mourning period that starts on Sunday.
Any attempt to bring forward the withdrawal would further antagonise religious settlers and their supporters who believe Jews have a Biblical birthright to Gaza, where 8,500 Jews live in isolation from 1.3 million Palestinians.
It could also put further strain on army and police, who have not yet completed preparations for the pullout.
Led by right-wing rabbis, 6,000 demonstrators who had been penned into the southern Israeli farming village of Kfar Maimon village for three days massed at the gates last night but there was no repeat of clashes that erupted a day earlier.
After abandoning the march last night, settler leaders said they still hoped to get thousands of people into the settlements by mid-August to reinforce the 8,500 who are due to be evacuated.
But there also appeared to be signs of more people drifting from the protest and heading home. Only a few hundred people remained today at the site
Most Israelis support the Gaza pullout, but opponents say ceding any land captured in the 1967 Middle East war would reward the Palestinian uprising.
On the Palestinian side, Prime Minister Ahmed Korei said Palestinians would celebrate "over every single metre of land" that Israel withdrew from.
Israel intends to leave four of its 120 West Bank settlements along with all of its Gaza enclaves. Palestinians welcome withdrawal from any of the territory on which they hope to create a state, but they point to the fact that Israel is strengthening its hold on larger settlements in the occupied West Bank at the same time as giving up Gaza.
The resources of Israel's security forces were stretched thin this week by the biggest standoff so far with anti-pullout protesters.