JERUSALEM, Sept 12 (AFP) - Tens of thousands of Israeli settlers and their supporters rallied in the centre of Jerusalem Sunday to protest against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
After holding a mass prayer session at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City, the holiest site in Judaism, the crowds gathered in the landmark Zion Square before heading to Sharon's office to demand the premier's resignation.
More than 1,000 police were on hand after the country's top policeman warned the protestors not to incite violence against Sharon.
A massive banner reading: "Disengagement is tearing the people apart", provided the backdrop for a string of podium tirades against the premier, a longtime champion of the settlers, now regarded by many of them as a traitor.
Sharon had earlier told his cabinet that his right-wing opponents were trying to foment "a civil war", saying that soldiers and police were being threatened and intimidated against taking part in the evacuation of settlements.
"It is unacceptable to involve the army, to incite against them, and to threaten them," Sharon said.
But the rally's organisers, the main settlers' organisation Yesha, spoke out strongly against violent resistance in a campaign charter presented to the crowd.
The organization's "10 Commandments for the Struggle against Disengagement" urged supporters to refrain from "physical or verbal violence" against soldiers and police or "inciting civil war", although it also demanded loyalty to the cause of Israeli ownership of the occupied territories "to the very end".
Gaza settlers' leader Avner Shimoni called for Sharon's resignation, insisting he had no mandate for his pullout plan.
Demonstrators also demanded the resignation of the last cabinet representative of the Israeli far right -- National Religious Party member Zevulun Orlev. The faction's other minister in Sharon's cabinet resigned in June but Orlev stayed on.
It was the second mass show of opposition to Sharon's pullout plan in recent weeks.
Sharon has shrugged off all attempts to block the Gaza pullout so far, including a defeat in a ballot among members of his Likud party and a protest in late July which saw more than 100,000 people form a human chain linking Gaza to Jerusalem.