Heckled Sharon Insists on Gaza Plan

Beset by angry hecklers in Israel’s parliament, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed Monday to push ahead with his plan to withdraw settlers from the Gaza Strip.

Speaking as lawmakers reconvened for their autumn session, the beleaguered prime minister acknowledged that “this house will be required to make very difficult decisions over the coming weeks.”

Sharon set Oct. 25 for the Knesset, or parliament, to vote on whether to move ahead with the plan, under which he hopes to evacuate the 8,000 Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip next year. The settlers live among about 1.3 million Palestinians in the seaside territory, which Israel seized from Egypt in the 1967 Middle East War.

The Israeli leader’s appearance before lawmakers followed a nearly monthlong hiatus in the country’s political life during holidays that began with the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashana.

In what is likely to be a recurring pattern in coming days and weeks, Sharon faced two no-confidence motions staged by opponents of the Gaza withdrawal plan. He survived both. But his political foes scored a victory by staging a symbolic vote on whether to approve the contents of his half-hour address to lawmakers, which the prime minister lost, 53-44.

“We will not forgive, we will not forget!” one Knesset member shouted from the chamber while Sharon was speaking.

Sharon sought in his speech to invoke the sense of national solidarity that is traditionally felt in Israel in the wake of any major attack on its citizens. The country is still reeling from bombings last week on a luxury hotel catering to Israelis in Taba, just over the Egyptian border, and on two nearby campgrounds.

In recent days, Sharon has made several moves that were read by Israeli analysts as attempts to shore up support among his sagging right-wing constituency.

A confidant of the prime minister, Dov Weisglass, suggested in an interview with a leading Israeli newspaper last week that any pullout from Gaza would be aimed at helping deflect pressure from the international community for the creation of a Palestinian state.

Israeli media reported that Sharon had overruled his top generals by ordering that Israeli forces press ahead with the occupation of a swath of northern Gaza, including the densely populated Palestinian refugee camp of Jabaliya.

About 100 Palestinians have died since the Israeli push into northern Gaza began two weeks ago. The offensive was triggered after Palestinian militants, using homemade Kassam rockets, killed two children in the Israeli town of Sderot.

The media reports said army commanders had informed Sharon that they had already done as much as they could for the moment to disable the Kassam-firing cells, which are mainly dispatched by the militant group Hamas, and that the continuing presence of troops was likely to cause heavy noncombatant casualties without significantly advancing Israel’s military goals. Dozens of Palestinian civilians are reported to have died in the operation.

On Monday, Israel’s judge advocate general ordered an investigation of an Israeli company commander who, according to the men serving under him, discharged a full ammunition magazine last week into the body of a 13-year-old Palestinian girl who had already been cut down by army fire in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.

The girl had strayed into what the army said was a no-go zone; family and friends said she was on her way to school.