ISRAEL: Concerned by polls indicating that an ever-shrinking number of the members of his Likud ruling party now support his Gaza withdrawal plan, Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon warned lawmakers yesterday that if they did not back his plan, Israel would lose out on a series of assurances he had extracted from President Bush.
He also hinted he may seek approval from parliament for his plan even if he lost an internal party referendum.
The prime minister made his remarks after a poll in the daily Haaretz found that backing among Likud members for his "disengagement" plan, which includes the evacuation of all settlements in Gaza and four in the northern West Bank, had dropped to 44 per cent, with 40 percent opposing the plan. Some 200,000 members of the centre-right party will vote in a referendum on the plan on May 2.
Human rights activists, meanwhile, yesterday said Israeli forces had recently detained a 13-year-old Palestinian boy during a stone-throwing incident and used him as a human shield near the West Bank village of Bidu where there have been fierce protests against the separation barrier Israel is building. A photograph distributed by an Israeli rights group showed Mohammed Badwan on the hood of an army jeep, with at least one of his arms tied to the wire mesh used to shield the windscreen from stones.
The number of Palestinians killed in a raid in Gaza that entered its third day yesterday, rose to 16 when Mohammed al-Mafouh (16) was shot dead. In the West Bank, three Palestinians were shot and killed near the city of Tul Karm. The army said all three were armed.