MIDDLE EAST: The leading candidate to replace Yasser Arafat in elections on January 9th, Mr Mahmoud Abbas, has called on Palestinian militants in Gaza to cease firing rockets at Israel.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, meanwhile has said he plans to move forward to later this month a cabinet vote on his plan to dismantle settlements in the Gaza Strip.
Mr Sharon told ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting yesterday that he was bringing the vote forward on the evacuation of all 21 settlements in Gaza and four in the northern West Bank to give settlers more notice of evacuation.
With the withdrawal planned to begin in July, the vote was scheduled for March, but the attorney general informed Mr Sharon that settlers would have to be told five to six months before the evacuation began.
The Israeli leader, who faces strong opposition to his plan within his own ruling Likud party and among settlers, said the evacuees must be given enough time to prepare for evacuation and for their lives after the evacuation, including finding new homes and new schools for their children.
In the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, Mr Abbas told militants that the rocket fire was counterproductive.
"Don't let your actions be used as an additional pretext and excuse for them [ Israel] to fight us, because this is not the proper time for such actions," he said.
Mr Abbas's remarks came after two Israelis were injured by rocket fire early yesterday. One person was seriously injured after being hit by a mortar fired at an industrial zone on the northern tip of Gaza and a second was injured after militants launched makeshift rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot, close to Gaza Strip.
Israeli troops backed by tanks and armoured vehicles moved into northern Gaza yesterday in a bid to stymie the rocket fire.
The forces moved out of the area last night.
Yesterday's raid came on the heels of a three-day foray by the military into the Gaza town of Khan Younis, which Israel said left 13 gunmen dead. The Palestinians put the death toll at 11, nine of them militants.
Mr Abbas, a moderate who has been outspoken in his opposition to attacks on Israelis, is the clear front-runner in the run-up to the election. An opinion poll conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research and released yesterday showed the former prime minister way ahead with 65 per cent support among respondents. His closest rival was reform activist Mr Mustafa Barghouti with 22 per cent.