JERUSALEM, 6 June 2004 — Last-ditch talks were under way yesterday to bring hard-liners from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Likud party round to his Gaza pullout plan after he fired two far-right ministers in a bid to ensure a majority in a Cabinet vote.

“I think we have time to reach a compromise before the vote on Sunday,” Immigration Absorption Minister Tzippi Livni, a Sharon ally, told Israeli public radio yesterday.

Livni has since Wednesday led the search for a compromise that would allow Sharon to rally the support of Likud hard-liners, like his finance minister and archrival Benjamin Netanyahu.

She is floating a proposal that would see the Cabinet vote on the overall principle of Sharon’s disengagement plan but include a clause requiring another vote before any Jewish settlements are actually evacuated.

But the talks have stalled over the question of continued funding to settlements in the months before they are dismantled.

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupying forces launched yesterday a massive raid in Beni Naeem town, east of Hebron and arrested four civilians under the pretext that they were wanted.

Also, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei met with the leftist Yossi Beilin at his office in Abu Dees. “Such a meeting comes in the course of the continued meetings with the Israeli leftist camp to find out a way to return the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians back on track.” Qorei said after the meeting.

In another development, the Palestinian prisoner’s club called for “a day of mourning and protest” today to mark the sentencing of Fatah chief Marwan Barghouti, who was convicted of murder late last month.

“The prisoners club calls on all Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority to decree Sunday a day of mourning and protest to mark Barghouti’s sentencing,” the group said in a statement.

And Hollywood actor Richard Gere met yesterday with Qorei on what was the actor’s third visit to the Palestinian territories.

Gere and Qorei held a brief half-hour meeting.

The actor, who has visited the region several times before in a bid to promote dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, was in Ramallah Friday to open an exhibition of his photographs at a local cultural center.