Settlers protest withdrawal, enemy attacks

TEL AVIV, Israel, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- Hundreds of Gaza Strip settlers, some carrying fins of mortars and rockets that hit their areas, Sunday demonstrated outside the Israeli Defense Ministry.

The settlers, many of them children, demanded sterner military action against the attacks.

The government wants to evacuate the Gaza Strip settlers in the second half of 2005 but the settlers oppose those plans and Sunday carried placards demanding: "Let the army win." In fact the army carried out several raids into Khan Younes, killed militants and destroyed houses in the areas from which bombs were fired, but when soldiers left the shooting resumed.

Demonstrators blocked the major Kaplan Road on the southern side of the army's general headquarters camp that includes the Defense Ministry, and burnt tires on David Hameleh (King David) Boulevard on its northern side. Police detained 12 demonstrators and released all but three girls who would not identify themselves.