Friday, March 4 2005 10:25 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Tel Aviv: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday (Mar 3, 2005) vowed to press ahead with a promised pullout from the Gaza Strip, despite calls from his own party for a referendum and a new blow to the fragile peace process from a bomb blast in the West Bank.

Sharon, who has received death threats from Israeli hardliners who had long regarded him as a champion of Jewish settlement of the occupied territories, insisted he would ignore calls for the pullout to be put to a referendum.

"Government and Parliament have made difficult decisions. They will happen," he told the central committee of his right-wing Likud party, moments before members voted by a show of hands for a plebiscite on the pullout.

Sharon has flatly refused to hold a referendum on the withdrawal, scheduled to begin in July, and urged central committee members not to back the non-binding resolution.

"I have never bowed to threats and I won't do so today," he said.

The Premier promised that settlement activity would continue in key parts of the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, despite the Gaza pullout.

"Thanks to settlement, we will forever keep our big positions, essential to our existence," he said, listing them as Jerusalem, "settlement blocs in the most sacred places of our history" and "main security zones for our Defence".

Both Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed for a referendum in order to shore up national unity.