Israeli setback over Gaza plan

JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip suffered a setback Tuesday after a parliamentary committee failed to approve a set of guidelines for dealing with Jewish settlers in the evacuation.

Also Tuesday, interim Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, the front-runner in the Jan. 9 presidential elections, addressed a campaign rally in Jericho, telling some 4,000 backers that he will follow in the footsteps of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who died on Nov. 11.

He said Arafat “devoted his life to the cause of his people” and that Palestinians will not rest until they have an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with east Jerusalem as its capital.

Although he is favored to win the presidential vote, Abbas – a soft-spoken bureaucrat who prefers to avoid large crowds – lacks the popular appeal of Yasser Arafat, so he has been looking for warm receptions like Tuesday’s at a Jericho soccer stadium.

Palestinian election organizers announced plans to prevent fraud in first presidential election in nine years. Ammar Dwaik, a top official in the Central Election commission, said voters’ hands will be stamped with indelible ink, and ballot boxes will be locked with numbered seals. “We made every effort possible to make sure that there will be no double voting, no fraud,” he said.

In Gaza, meanwhile, an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at a car carrying Hamas militants in the city of Khan Younis. Hamas said the men escaped unharmed. The army said the militants were involved in recent mortar attacks on nearby Jewish settlements.

The vote in the Israeli parliament’s Law Committee isn’t expected to disrupt the actual Gaza withdrawal, which is scheduled to begin in July. However, officials warned the delay would cause new uncertainty for Jewish settlers and could deter them from beginning preparations to move.

The legislation included guidelines for compensating Jewish settlers and jail sentences for settlers who refuse to leave. The Law Committee was voting on clauses that lay out the jail terms.

Tuesday’s vote could hold up the bill by several months, a committee spokeswoman said.