Quds city, Oct 18, SPA -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Monday nothing would deter him from pushing forward with his plan to pull out of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. Also Monday, scattered fighting in the Gaza Strip killed at least five Palestinians. Sharon, a longtime patron of the settlements, spoke a day after holding a tense meeting with settler leaders that ended with battle lines drawn between the two sides. Sharon has pledged to put his "disengagement plan" to a parliamentary vote on Oct. 25 and, despite a rift in his hard-line Likud Party, he is expected to prevail with the backing of dovish opposition parties. Sharon told reporters Monday that he is required to bring his plan to parliament and he intends to follow through, despite pressure from the settlers. "The responsibility of managing the issues of the country, the responsibility of the future of the country, is not the concern of just one group. It is the concern of the entire nation, and this burden is placed on my shoulders, and this is how I plan to behave," he said. Settler leaders called their meeting Sunday with their former ally "disgraceful" and pressed for a national referendum, while pledging to torpedo the withdrawal. "The prime minister is unreachable," settler leader Yehoshua Mor-Yosef told Army Radio on Monday. About 8,200 settlers live in 21 Gaza settlements, among 1.3 million Palestinians. Sharon decided that the settlers cannot remain in the hostile, poverty-stricken seaside territory. His plan also calls for evacuating four tiny enclaves in the northern part of the West Bank next summer. Sharon says his plan will increase Israel's security after four years of fighting with the Palestinians and help consolidate control over large chunks of the West Bank.
