JERUSALEM, 19 February 2005 — Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon began efforts yesterday to overcome the last major hurdles before implementation of his Gaza withdrawal plan which is likely to begin in less than two months. There is a key Cabinet vote tomorrow and a Parliament vote on the state budget next month.

Sharon invited the leader of the 15-seat opposition Shinui party to his farm in southern Israel to get its support for the budget, which the premier has to pass by March 31 or his government will fall.

Sharon’s Cabinet is scheduled to vote on the pullout tomorrow, four days after the Knesset forged the plan into law by passing legislation detailing it.

But a Palestinian negotiator warned yesterday that unless Israel took more measures, militants would resume their attacks against Israel. Mohammed Dahlan called on Israel to free a larger number of Palestinian prisoners and leave a buffer zone on the southern Gaza Strip border as part of its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza.

The axis would become a bone of contention similar to the “Sheeba Farms” area on the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel did not leave as part of its pullout from southern Lebanon in May 2000, he warned.

Israeli media reported, meanwhile, that Sharon decided to hold the Cabinet vote on his Gaza pullout plan along with a vote on the revised route of the wall Israel is building in the southern West Bank.

He hopes that the two votes in the same session will minimize international criticism on the controversial West Bank wall, on the one hand, and to soften internal opposition to the Gaza pullout on the other, the reports said.

The revised route of the wall will incorporate 7 percent of West Bank land and Israel’s main settlement blocks, including that of Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem, and Maaleh Adumim, east of Jerusalem.

The first evacuation of settlers from Gaza is scheduled to begin in less than two months, the Israeli Yediot Aharonot daily reported yesterday.

Some 24 families from the southern Gaza Strip settlement of Peot Sade have said they will move voluntarily to a town near Ashkelon in southern Israel on April 30.

Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz will be able to sign evacuation orders five months after receiving Cabinet approval, which would allow the forced disengagement from Gaza to begin in July.

— With input from agencies