Hamas vows continued resistance after Gaza pullout

Hamas vowed yesterday to continue armed struggle after Israel's Gaza pullout, sending a message to Palestinians celebrating the impending withdrawal that resistance is key to ending occupation and achieving statehood.

"Wherever there is occupation there is resistance. Gaza will not be first and last," senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyah told a news conference attended by at least 10 co-founders and leaders of the Islamic fundamentalist group.

"Hamas affirms its commitment to resistance as a strategic choice until the occupation withdraws from our land and our holy sites," he said.

While the militant Palestinian group spoke of conflict to come, Jewish settlers marked a sombre Sabbath - for many, possibly their last in Gaza - as Israeli and Palestinian forces geared up for an evacuation due to begin on Wednesday.

Hamas, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction, showcased its leaders and political message on the heels of a Palestinian Authority-organised Gaza beachfront celebration on Friday of the planned Israeli pullout.

Thousands attended the festivities during which President Mahmoud Abbas said the evacuation of all of Israel's 21 settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank would inevitably lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The Palestinian Authority put its security forces on their highest alert level ahead of deployment today near settlements to prevent any bid by gunmen to disrupt the pullout.

Thousands of Israeli police deployed in Jerusalem's Old City to head off any clashes between Muslims and Jewish worshippers holding prayers at the Western Wall on Tisha B'Av, a fast day marking the ancient destruction of the biblical Jewish Temples.

Israeli police commissioner Moshe Karadi said police would go on high alert in southern Israel today and put up roadblocks to ensure more pullout opponents do not slip into Gaza settlements to join some 3,000 protesters already there.

At the news conference, Haniyah made clear Hamas had no intention of going to battle against the Palestinian Authority. But he said the group would not allow one party - an indirect reference to Abbas's Fatah - to dominate decision-making.

Abbas, who along with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared a truce in February, has rejected any idea of armed confrontation with militant groups, citing a risk of civil war.

Karadi told Israel's Channel Two TV he expected most of the 8,500 settlers in Gaza, home to 1.4 million Palestinians, to leave quietly and not respond violently when squads of soldiers and police knock on their doors with eviction notices on Monday.

Settlers will have a 48-hour grace period to pack up and head to Israel or face evacuation by the unarmed squads, which have orders to carry away anyone they find in settlements on Wednesday.

"Life is still beautiful here. I have many visitors," said settler Hanna Picard, a native of Paris who lives in the settlement of Neve Dekalim.

But there were signs of exodus from an occupied land to which many settlers stake a biblical claim.

On one road heading into Israel, a truck filled with towering greenhouse plants and another vehicle carrying a stucco bungalow made their way out of the Gaza Strip.

It is still unclear which settlements will be evacuated first in an operation a senior Israeli official said the military hoped to complete by September 4.

Palestinians welcome the withdrawal but fear the plan is a ruse to trade tiny Gaza for much of the occupied West Bank, where 230,000 settlers and 2.4 million Palestinians live, and deny them the state they seek. The World Court describes the Israeli settlements as illegal. Israel disputes this.