Israelis strike in Gaza as settlers warn of civil war

An Israeli helicopter today fired a missile at a site Palestinian militants used to launch a rocket at a nearby Israeli town in the latest of a series of clashes in the northern Gaza strip.

There was no immediate report of casualties.

Israeli troops have been battling Palestinian militants near the Jabaliya refugee camp since early yesterday, in what the army said is an attempt to stop the militants firing the rockets. One Palestinian has died and four others have been hurt

The military has sealed off the West Bank and Gaza Strip, barring Palestinians from entering Israel until the Jewish holiday season ends in October, citing fears of planned Palestinian attacks.

Meanwhile, Israeli settlers warned today that the country will be plunged into a civil war if Prime Minister Ariel Sharon presses ahead with plans to evacuate Jewish settlements.

The warnings are the latest in increasingly hostile rhetoric against Sharon’s disengagement plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four isolated West Bank settlements in 2005, a move he says will boost Israeli security.

Settler leaders claimed that Sharon does not have a mandate to carry out the withdrawal and said carrying out the plan would likely result in a civil war.

“Two things could happen if this program goes ahead without being brought to democratic elections in Israel,” Eliezer Hasdai, head of a regional settlement council, said.

“The first is a mass refusal (to evacuate) among soldiers and officers in the army. The other is definitely a type of civil war.”

Hasdai and other leaders first issued their warnings earlier this week in a meeting with Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz.

“If any one dares to come and touch my daughter’s grave … whether a soldier or the chief of staff, I will shoot him,” Hasdai told newspapers.

“It is enough that one bullet is let loose and this will snowball into a local civil war.”

However, Sharon vowed that his plan to withdraw from Gaza, home to 8,000 Jewish settlers and 1.3 million Palestinians, will go ahead despite these threats.

“This plan will go ahead regardless, period,” Sharon said.

Much of the opposition comes from within Sharon’s own Likud Party and last night Sharon was jeered off the stage at a meeting of young Likud activists with calls to resign.

A petition being circulated in Israel calls the pullout a “crime against humanity” and urged security forces to disobey orders to evacuate settlements.

The petition was signed by 185 people, including former lawmakers, academics military officers and retired officials.

The settlers have been accused of pushing the country to the brink of civil war to block the withdrawal.

“The settlers, in their campaign to delegitimise the disengagement, will try to lead to a situation of civil war- and under this threat of civil war prevent any evacuations of settlements,” said Avshalom Vilan from the Meretz party

“They are trying, step-by- step, to drag us into an apocalyptic situation,” he said.