Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Monday that he favors delaying the Gaza pullout plan originally slated for July 20 for three weeks to avoid clashing a Jewish mourning period.

THE DELAY

Israel Television reported that Sharon -- who until now had always been opposed to calls to postpone the pullout -- apparently had made up his mind on a three-week delay and would seek the approval of top ministers on Tuesday.

Sharon was quoted as saying on Monday that he was postponing the Gaza Strip pullout plan because the plan's administrator said settlers should not be moved during a Jewish mourning period marking the destruction of the biblical Temples.

Earlier, Yonaton Bassi, head of the Disengagement Administration, suggested the delay during the weekly cabinet session on Sunday.

Bassi told Sharon that the pullout needs to be delayed until after the traditional mourning over the destruction of two ancient Jewish temples in Jerusalem which ends on the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, or Aug. 14. Jewish rabbis also urged the postponement, citing Orthodox tradition.

Sharon has previously turned down military and government requests to delay the disengagement for logistical and planning reasons, fearing any postponement might give ultranationalists more time to block it.

Although Sharon and other Israeli officials cited religious sensitivities for the possible delay, it appears the government and military are unprepared for the operation, which involves uprooting 9,000 Jewish settlers -- many of them hard-liners who vow to resist the evacuation.

"We need to do everything to make the evacuation easier and to allow settlers to overcome the crisis of disengagement," he added.

The government has yet to begin building temporary housing for them or even to determine where most of them will live.

Labor Cabinet minister Matan Vilnai said he opposes the delay. "Any delay can bring about new problems," he told Israel TV. "It's possible to do it in a short time ... so that it will all be behind us."

The pullout plan, also known as the disengagement plan, was put forward by Sharon at the end of 2003. According to it, Israel will withdraw forces and Jewish settlers from all 21 settlements in theGaza Strip and four out of 120 in the northern West Bank, a process starting from July 20.

The plan has drawn strong opposition from extremist Jewish groups, which said the move might be seen as capitulation to Palestinian attacks.

Also on Monday, Jerusalem Post reported on its website that Israeli Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has voiced opposition to any further pullout from the West Bank.

Netanyahu said a further withdrawal will be interpreted by Israel's enemy as a surrender to terror.

The pullout plan is welcomed but at the same time feared by the Palestinians, on the ground that it might be a ruse used by Israel to hold onto larger blocs of land, which they want for a viable and independent state.

CONSTRUCTION PLAN IN WEST BANK

Also on Monday, the Israeli government issued a tender seeking bids for building 50 houses in a West Bank settlement, a week after US president George W. Bush said such construction should stop.

Yaakov Harel, spokesman for the Israel Lands Authority, said the houses will be built in Elkana settlement near the pre-1967 borders between Israel and Palestine, adding the construction can begin in two or three months.

The US-backed road map peace plan demands Israel halt all settlement expansion, and Bush criticized Israel for settlement activities last week when Sharon visited Washington.

However, Bush also voiced support for Israel to keep larger settlement blocs in the West Bank after the Gaza pullout plan.

The West Bank and Gaza were captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

PALESTINIAN, US OBJECTIONS

Israel's plans to build 50 homes met Palestine's strong objection, saying settlement construction threatened peace moves.

Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, said the Elkana plan "is undermining the efforts to realize the vision of a two-state solution and we urge the American administration that while they focus on the Gaza disengagement they should not close their eyes to units being added in the hundreds in the West Bank."

"We will protest to the US administration," Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Shaath said of the plan.

The White House was quick to criticize Israel in unusually direct terms after it unveiled plans to build 50 new settler homes.

"We will be seeking clarification from the government of Israel," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "Israel should not be expanding settlements."

"And I think the president made his views very clear last week,as well, that Israel should not expand settlements," McClellan said. During their meeting on April 11, Bush asked Sharon not to expand a key Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

While saying Israel should halt settlement expansion, McClellan also echoed Sharon's chief concern by reiterating Bush's call for Palestinian leaders "to dismantle terrorist organizations".

In Gaza on Monday, a Palestinian sniper seriously wounded an Israeli soldier on the Egypt border and slightly wounded a civilian contractor, the military said.

Meanwhile, Palestinian witnesses said Israeli troops wounded a Palestinian young man in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun on Monday.

Such violence has dropped considerably since the two sides announced a truce on Feb. 8, but the military noted that incidentsin Gaza are escalating ahead of the Israeli planned withdrawal from Gaza in July.

Source: Xinhua