TEL AVIV - Tens of thousands of Israelis marched through the streets of Tel Aviv late Saturday in a massive rally in support of the planned Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip later this year, the organisers and an AFP correspondent said.
Under the slogan "Israel is getting out of Gaza", the demonstrators carried banners reading "Evacuating Gaza is choosing life" and "Today Gush Katif, tomorrow the West Bank", referring to the largest settlement bloc in Gaza.
Organisers said "tens of thousands" attended the demonstration but police officials estimated the number at closer to 10,000.
"The government has decided to evacuate Gaza and it will happen," Interior Minister Ofir Pines told the cheering crowd from a podium in downtown Tel Aviv after demonstrators had marched through the city.
"We say `no` to the refusal to obey orders, `no` to violence and `no` to incitement," the minister said, to raucous applause.
In recent months, ultra-nationalist opponents of the pullout have called on soldiers to refuse orders to evacuate Jewish settlements, and have even issued death threats against ministers and army officials involved in the pullout.
The demonstration was organised by the so-called Majority Coalition, which is made up of left wing and peace groups who back the evacuation of Gaza.
"It is important to participate in this march to show that all of the (people in the) Israeli streets support the withdrawal from Gaza, and not to abandon the stage to the settlers," one participant told army radio.
"I came because Israel is in the middle of a struggle over the path it is taking," said another demonstrator, without giving his name. "How would it look if the state was choked by (right-wing) threats of civil war?"
Jewish settlers, who are fiercely opposed to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon`s withdrawal plan, have repeatedly warned that the evacuation would lead to a split in the nation which could cause civil war.
Last May, more than 100,000 demonstrators rallied in Tel Aviv in support of Sharon`s plan, which will see all 21 settlements in Gaza dismantled along with four others in the northern West Bank in a process due to start on July 20 this year.
03/19/2005 19:23 GMT