Israeli President Moshe Katsav said Mondai the vocal opposition of pro-settler rabbis to Israel's Gaza pullout could incite ultra-nationalists to try to assassinate Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"In the struggle over the disengagement someone is likely to distort the rabbis' messages," Katsav told Army Radio.

The result, he said, could be "extremist actions" and "the distorted conclusion that to prevent Israel's destruction, one must assassinate the prime minister."

Katsav made the comments a day after the Shin Bet security service measured Sharon and members of his cabinet for bulletproof vests, a sign of mounting fears of violence against Israeli leaders ahead of the pullout due to begin in mid-August.

Israeli army yesterday removed prefabricated residences used to house soldiers from the Gaza Strip settlement of Morag, the army and residents said.

A big crane loaded the housing units onto a truck to take them out of the area, said Yuval Onterman, a Morag resident.

In recent weeks, some pro-settler rabbis have sharpened their rhetoric against the withdrawal from land they see as a biblical birthright, condemning it as a violation of Jewish law and a danger to Israel's existence.

Such talk has revived memories of the verbal attacks against former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin before he was assassinated in 1995 by an ultranationalist Jew opposed to his peace moves with the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmad Qurei has vowed that his cabinet would quit and there will be no need for it, if chaos in the Palestinian territories goes on, the East Jerusalem-based Al Quds daily reported yesterday.

Qurei was quoted as saying that his cabinet gives high importance to the issue of chaos.

If this cabinet cannot put an end to security deterioration and chaos in our Palestinian territories, this means that there has to be room for another new cabinet accomplish this task, vowed Qurei.

Qurei noted that his cabinet had issued 262 decisions since it assumed responsibility, clarifying that "despite the difficult situations, the cabinet worked seriously to improve the daily life of our people and reforming the administrative apparatus."

Qurei will next week begin talks aimed at forming a new Palestinian national unity cabinet, Palestinian sources said Monday.

The sources said that Qurei would hold contacts with leaders of Palestinian parties and factions to discuss forming a new cabinet to deal with the challenges Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip will pose to the Palestinians.

They said Qurei wants to bring all factions into the government to work closely before, during and after the Israeli withdrawal.

Source: China Daily