JERUSALEM, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has issued orders to coordinate with the Palestinian Authority the planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Speaking at an annual reception for the foreign press, in Jerusalem Tuesday evening, Sharon said: "We already started to coordinate. I instructed to start coordination of our withdrawal from Gaza."
Sharon originally opted for a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and from four settlements in the northern West Bank. At that time, he argued coordination was impossible.
Last November Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat died, in the election that followed Mahmoud Abbas (who is called Abu Mazen) won the presidency and Sharon found a partner.
"I believe we will be able to coordinate, or to have more coordination first in the theme of security and second on the disengagement plan," he told he journalists.
"Such coordination is very important for us because I would like the area that we are leaving not (fall into) ... the hands of (the militant) Hamas, Islamic Jihad or any ... terrorist organization, but be in the hands of the Palestinian Authority," he said.
Sharon wants to ensure also a quiet pullback. Some 8,000 settlers are to be evacuated with their belongings. Large army units are to pull out, and Sharon has said he would like to avoid a situation in which Palestinians open fire to create an impression Israel is withdrawing under their attacks.
At last week's summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, he told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan's King Abdullah, and Abu Mazen and other Palestinian leaders "they have to be very, very careful. I don't think Israel would be able to implement the disengagement from Gaza under fire, and if there would be fire our reaction would be very harsh and hard," he said.
The Knesset plenum, meanwhile, began discussing the final version of the bill providing for the withdrawal and compensation to the settlers. Expectations are for a vote Wednesday and on Sunday for the Cabinet to pave the way for letters to be sent to the settlers giving them five to six months to pull out.
Hard-liners have stepped up their campaign against the pullback. They blocked main highways, and ministers and the head of the Labor Party's Knesset faction have received death threats.
Television Tuesday showed graffiti in Jerusalem saying: "Arik (Sharon's nickname), Hitler is proud of you."
The prime minister told the foreign correspondents the threats would not deter him.
"I am determined to carry out the (pullback) decision. The only thing that guides me is how to (make) progress and not to delay," he said.
As for the death threats, Sharon, an ex-paratroop general, said: "In my entire life I never surrendered to threats and I have no intention to start now."
Meanwhile, policewoman Gal Kedem, whom a right-wing demonstrator kicked in the chest Monday evening, was in hospital with a broken rib. She said the abuse and being called a Nazi particularly hurt her. I am a Jew just likes them, Kedem said of the abusers.
Some Palestinian-Israeli violence continued Tuesday night in the West Bank and two militants armed with AK-47 Kalachnikovs were killed south of Nablus.
The deputy commander of the 202nd paratroop battalion, identified only at Lt. Col. Gai, told Israel Radio an Israeli lookout "spotted two terrorists heading for (the settlement of) Beracha." Infantry units rushed over and closed the area. The militants apparently spotted the activity, headed back to Nablus but encountered a Nahal reconnaissance unit ambush that killed them, according to Gai.
In another incident in Bitunia, near Ramallah, a youngster was shot and killed and two other people were wounded, Israel Radio reported. Palestinian sources said two Israelis got out of a van and shot at them. Soldiers in the area said they had hurled stunt and gas grenades but did not fire, the radio added.
The expected pullback from the outskirts of Jericho was postponed. Jericho is the first city that should regain Palestinian-security control, but Israel and the Palestinians did not resolve differences over the extent of the Israeli pullback there.
There are no Israeli soldiers in the city. However, there are roadblocks near it, and Israel controls the village of Uja, north of Jericho, beside an Israeli highway. The Palestinians want Israel to withdraw from those areas.
A planned release of 500 Palestinian security prisoners will not be held this week, a Prisons' Service officer told United Press International.
At the meeting with the foreign correspondents Sharon complained that Russian President Vladimir Putin has reneged on a two-year old promise not to provide Syria with SA-18anti-aircraft missiles. Sharon said he had expressed Israel's concern that such weapons might end "in the hands of terrorists."
"I was promised then that the SA-18 ... would not be sold to the Syrians because it might find its way to ... the hands of terrorist organizations."
He said that earlier in the day he received a letter from Putin and "I understand they are going to sell that kind weapon to the Syrians."
"We worry about that," he added and expected to continue discussing the matter with the Russians.
Sharon seemed concerned the Lebanese Hezbollah, whom Syria supports, would get those missiles.
