GAZA CITY, 1 December 2005 — Veteran Israeli politician Shimon Peres yesterday left the Labour Party and announced his support for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at March’s general election.

“My period of service within the (Labour) party has come to an end,” said the 82-year-old former prime minister who was ousted from the helm of Labour earlier this month.

“His (Sharon’s) mind is set to continue the peace process and he is open to new ideas for peace. I support his election to seek these aims,” he added at a press conference.

Peres stopped short of announcing whether he would join Sharon’s new centrist Kadima faction which the prime minister formed last week after announcing his own split from the right-wing Likud party.

The former Nobel Peace Prize winner said that he wanted to dedicate himself to the efforts to bring about peace with the Palestinians.

“My party activity has come to an end, whereas my contribution to peace and development is yet to be completed,” he said.

“I decided to dedicate the next years to the supreme effort to making peace between our neighbors and us, while keeping peace within us.” The move will add to the Sharon bandwagon with polls indicating that Kadima will emerge as the largest party in the 120-seat Parliament after the March 28 election.

While twice serving as prime minister, Peres’ international reputation has usually outpaced his support back home and he has never won an election.

His departure from Labour was precipitated by his defeat at the hands of trade unionist Amir Peretz who promptly pulled the party out of Sharon’s ruling coalition in which Peres had been serving as deputy premier.

Meanwhile, the ruling Palestinian Fatah faction decided yesterday to resume its primaries to select candidates for January parliamentary polls which had been halted amid violence and fraud.

“The central committee has decided to continue with the primaries in all areas where they have so far not taken place and as quickly as possible,” Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Shaath told reporters.

Fatah’s main governing body, chaired by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, had been meeting to decide what to do about the primaries, which were initially scheduled in Gaza and the West Bank last Friday and quickly ran into chaos.

More than 300,000 Fatah members are eligible to choose the 132 candidates who will represent the party on Jan. 25 in the first Palestinian legislative election in a decade, only the second ever such parliamentary vote.

Also yesterday, clashes broke out between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians after about 20 military jeeps rolled into a northern West Bank town, security sources and witnesses said. The jeeps entered the Ras Al-Ain district of Nablus where troops surrounded several Palestinian homes and the sound of explosions could be heard.

Shooting broke out between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, but there were no reports of any injuries, the sources added.

However around 10 Palestinian youngsters suffered the effects of tear gas fired by troops in response to a bout of stone-throwing, witnesses said. Two Palestinians were arrested during the incursion but it was not immediately known if they belonged to any particular armed faction.

An Israeli Army spokeswoman confirmed that forces conducted what she called an arrest operation in Nablus but without giving details.

— With input from agencies