Sharon strives to keep pullout plan alive

Meanwhile, violence carried on in the Gaza Strip, where the latest Israeli incursion left a Palestinian dead and several wounded, including an AFP photographer, Palestinian medical sources said.

Sharon was testing the waters with a scaled down proposal for dismantling three isolated settlements in the Gaza Strip, instead of all 21, and two in the West Bank instead of four.

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He met Tuesday with a string of Israeli officials to ponder his options after his own party crushingly defeated his plan during an internal referendum on Sunday, prompting wild speculation on the coutnry's political future.

Sharon insisted he would press on with the plan, be it a watered down version, but he still faced an uphill struggle to garner the necessary support in parliament and in his cabinet, amid threats of a "Likud intifada" if he tried to force his plan through.

Despite their opposition to Sharon's methods, members of the quartet meeting in New York Tuesday encouraged the premier to implement the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip he promised to Washington.

"The quartet welcomes and encourages such a step, which should provide a rare moment of opportunity in the search for peace in the Middle East," said a statement from quartet members the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia.

"This initiative, which must bring about a full Israeli withdrawal and complete end of occupation in Gaza, can be a step towards achieving the two-state vision," the four powers said in a statement.

The quartet "has finally understood that Israel is for the first time ready to evacuate the settlements and that it is possible to move forward," was the reaction from a senior official in Sharon's office.

But the quartet statement was also seen as a way of breathing new life into the roadmap, which Sharon recently declared dead, and suggested that the Israeli withdrawal should be complete.