JERUSALEM, Jan 30 (AFP) - More than 130,000 protestors, many of them Jewish settlers, rallied outside the Israeli parliament on Sunday to protest against their government's plans to quit the Gaza Strip this year, police said.
"As of early evening, more than 130,000 demonstrators are gathered near the Knesset," a police spokesman told reporters.
The main Jewish settler body said it was surprised by the size of the turnout for the protest against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plans to pull all troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip by the end of the year.
The demonstrators arrived on more than 1,000 buses and were due to remain outside the parliament and adjacent ministry buildings until Monday afternoon.
They held up orange banners -- the colour of Gush Khatif, the main Jewish settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip -- and chanted "let the people decide," said journalists at the scene.
"Mr prime minister, you have no right to evacuate Gush Khatif, without first holding a referendum or new elections," read one banner. Around 2,000 Israeli police officers fanned out to control the crowd.
Sharon is determined to stick to his timetable to recall all 8,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and four isolated northern West Bank outposts, despite hefty opposition from extremists and his own right-wing Likud party.
01/30/2005 18:45 GMT - AFP