by Marius Schattner
JERUSALEM, Aug 31 (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unveiled an accelerated timetable for his Gaza pullout plan Tuesday, brushing aside opponents by predicting it would win parliamentary approval in early November.
A bullish Sharon told deputies from his right-wing Likud party that he would present the main legal provisions of his controversial project to pull troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip to his security cabinet on September 14.
He will then present the full details to his cabinet on September 26 which is scheduled to vote on the project on October 24.
"I expect that on November 3, the law will be adopted in a first reading in parliament," he added.
The full legal provisions were not originally expected to be unveiled until early next year.
"This plan will be applied, and that's it," Sharon warned opponents of the plan at the meeting in the Israeli parliament.
Sharon's so-called disengagement plan, which also envisages a strengthening of control over larger settlement blocs in the West Bank, has run into major opposition among Likud hardliners.
He lost his overall parliamentary majority in June when traditional right-wing allies baulked at the prospect of a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and four small Jewish enclaves in the northern West Bank.
The Likud convention voted earlier this month against Sharon inviting the main opposition Labour party into a new broad-based governing coalition, a move seen as vital for the project to receive a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.
The government has previously announced that all the 8,000 settlers should have left Gaza by September next year and troops will be pulled out by the end of 2005.
Reports Tuesday said that the evacuations could start as early as February next year, but there was no confirmation from Sharon.
Speaking before the prime minister addressed the Likud faction, a close aide would not rule out the possibility that some of the 21 Gaza settlements and the four in the West Bank could be evacuated before the end of the year.
"If the residents agree to receive advance compensation payments, it is possible that these areas can be evacuated before the end of the year which will facilitate the evacuation from other setltlements," he told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"The settlers who agree to leave voluntarily, without trying to resist the authorities, will be treated favourably. They will be given advances on the compensation as well as all kinds of aid grants to begin their new life."
The Palestinians have given a qualified welcome to the Gaza pullout plan, saying they support an Israeli withdrawal from any parts of the West Bank and Gaza but not be at the expense of a comprehensive peace agreement.
Negotiations minister Saeb Erakat said after Sharon's announcement that the Palestinian Authority was ready to take control in Gaza.
"The Palestinian Authority is ready to assume its responsibilities in any territories that Israel retreats from in the West Bank or in the Gaza Strip," Erakat told AFP.
Sharon has refused to hold talks with the Palestinians over the Gaza pullout, instead looking to Egypt to act as a go-between.
Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei was to meet President Hosni Mubarak in the Egyptian city of Alexandria later Tuesday, with the Gaza pullout set to figure at the top of their agenda.
The disengagement plan was enthusiastically endorsed by US President George W. Bush back in April, when he infuriated Palestinians by saying it was "unrealistic" to expect Israel to withdraw all its settlers from the largest settlement blocs in the West Bank.
In an apparent bid to bolster Sharon against his internal critics, Washington has turned a blind eye to new Israeli plans to resume settlement activity in contravention of the terms of the internationally-backed roadmap peace plan.
In Gaza itself, guards managed to foil an attempted suicide attack at the main Erez crossing point into Israel early Tuesday.
An army spokesman said border guards had first become suspicious when the would-be attacker presented false identity papers. He was then found with a belt of explosives and "forced to give himself up before he could set it off."
Palestinian medical sources meanwhile said that a 14-year-old boy was killed in the early hours by Israeli troops during an incursion into the Rafah refugee camp in the south of the Gaza Strip.