October 26, 2004 - 6:15 AM

Israel set to approve Gaza pullout

By Matt Spetalnick

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's divided parliament is widely expected to ratify Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza withdrawal plan today,
a crucial step towards the first evacuation of settlers from lands Palestinians want for a state.

Despite the splintering of his coalition, mounting death threats and warnings of civil strife, Sharon was set to put his U.S.-backed
"disengagement" plan to a vote on Tuesday after a stormy Knesset debate that began on Monday.

Police ringed the parliament as pro-settler protesters vowed to impede the proceedings inside by forming a "human chain" and parading a
slow-moving procession of cars outside the building.

Sharon has tried to blunt far-right opposition by stepping up raids in Gaza, where troops killed 17 Palestinians, including an 11-year-old boy,
in raids against militants on Monday, Palestinian medics and witnesses said. The army said it targeted gunmen behind mortar attacks.

Sharon, once the Jewish settlers' champion but now the target of their ire, opened the debate by saying a pullout from Gaza by the end of
the year would boost Israel's security and allow it to seal its grip on larger West Bank settlements.

"I call on the people of Israel to unite in this decisive hour," he said to loud heckling from ultra-nationalist lawmakers who oppose his plan,
which he promotes as "disengagement" from conflict with the Palestinians.

ARAFAT'S HEALTH UNDER SCRUTINY

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, concerns about Yasser Arafat's health heightened on Monday with word the 75-year-old Palestinian
president had undergone an exploratory medical procedure after complaining of a stomach ailment.

But Palestinian Telecommunications and Technology Minister Azzam al-Ahmad told Reuters an endoscopy, a minor procedure in which a
small scope is inserted into the body to check vital organs, showed Arafat had "no major ailment".

Israel has effectively confined Arafat to his Ramallah headquarters for more than two years, accusing him of fomenting violence. Arafat
denies the allegation.

Pushing for parliamentary approval for his Gaza plan, Sharon, a former general, told lawmakers: "I learned from experience that one cannot
be victorious by the sword alone."

His crackdown in Gaza has failed to mollify critics who say a withdrawal would reward Palestinian violence and betray Jewish claims to
biblical lands.

"You are tearing the nation apart. Go home. You must not expel Jews," Uri Ariel of the ultra-nationalist National Union party shouted at
Sharon before being ejected from the chamber.

Polls show most Israelis back "disengagement" and it is likely to pass with up to 67 of the 120 votes in the Knesset, but only with support of
the dovish opposition Labour Party to offset a mutiny by rightists in Sharon's Likud party.

Up to half of Likud's 40 deputies intend to vote "No".

Sharon hoped to widen his margin of victory to quell demands for a referendum on his plan, which calls for uprooting all 21 settlements in
Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank.

Some 8,000 Jews live in fortified enclaves in Gaza among 1.3 million Palestinians.

Palestinians believe Sharon's plan will kill off deadlocked peace efforts and deny them a viable state.

But if implemented, it would be Israel's first removal of settlements from territories occupied in the 1967 Middle East war since 1982, when
Sinai was returned to Egypt.

Sharon, who has threatened to fire any minister who votes against his plan, rejects the idea of a nationwide ballot as a delaying tactic.

He told parliament his decision to evacuate Gaza was the hardest he has made in a long career as a "warrior, politician, legislator, cabinet
minister and prime minister".