GAZA CITY, 10 May 2005 — Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday he would postpone Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza Strip by three weeks even as his deputy, Shimon Peres, said the pullout was not a done deal.

Sharon said the pullout would take place in mid-August, to avoid conflicting with a traditional Jewish period of mourning.

The delay could give settlers and rightist supporters, now staging a protest campaign, more time to organize their avowed resistance to Sharon’s plan to “disengage” from conflict with Palestinians in occupied territory they want for a state.

In an interview on Israel Radio, Sharon said the pullout would be launched “in consideration of the (mourning period), that is, immediately after Tisha B’av, apparently the 15th, 16th or 17th of August”.

He declined to give an exact date.

Sharon had mooted a possible delay three weeks ago, citing Jewish religious sensibilities during the mourning spell that marks the destruction during biblical times of two Jerusalem temples. The observance ends Aug. 14. Jews do not move house during this period.

Deputy Prime Minister Peres said in remarks published yesterday that the pullout is not a done deal and could still be derailed if the homes of all the Jewish settlers are demolished. The former prime minister and leader of the center-left Labour party told the English-language Jerusalem Post he had only decided to enter the governing coalition in order to ensure that the pullout takes place but this was not yet “a done deal”.

“If we leave Gaza, it will be an achievement. If we don’t, it will be a tragedy,” he said. “In my eyes, the withdrawal from Gaza is a condition for a continuation of the diplomatic process.”

The government has still to make a final decision on whether to demolish the homes of the 8,000 settlers who are to be uprooted from the occupied Gaza Strip.

Peres said that the whole process would be delayed by months if the homes are razed as Israel would be obliged by international law to remove the debris.

“We are talking about 12 million tons. It will take three months to remove, and cost 250 million shekels ($57 million). Then we have to find a place in Israel to dump it. This alone can spoil it.

“In the meantime, what do you think will happen? We will destroy (the homes), and they (the Palestinians) will stand by and applaud? It will create a negative process. We will lose their faith that we stand by dates. And for what, so we are seen on television as destroyers of homes?”

Although Sharon has previously said that Israel had “no intention” of destroying the houses, yesterday he said he remained undecided. “It depends on the attitude of the Palestinians,” he told public television.

“On the one hand, the image of destroying houses is not good for Israel. But on the other hand, I don’t want terrorist flags waving from the rooftops.”

In Moscow, international Middle East mediators from the “Quartet” group met and encouraged Israel’s partial withdrawal from the Palestinian territories.

“We affirmed support to the Israeli initiative to withdraw from Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank. We insist on complete withdrawal from Gaza ... in accordance with the road map,” UN Secretary General Kofi Annan told reporters.

He was speaking after talks with the other Quartet representatives — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

— Additional input from agencies