Minister quits over Gaza withdrawal
Israeli premier Ariel Sharon’s determination to push through his Gaza withdrawal plan claimed its first victims today.
Housing Minister Effie Eitam and a second official from the pro-settler National Religious Party resigned from the government in protest over the Cabinet’s approval of the plan.
The effect of the resignations on Sharon’s slim parliamentary majority remained unclear.
Party officials said that although Eitam and Yitzhak Levy, a deputy minister, had pulled out of the government, the party had not yet decided whether to remain in the coalition or not.
Social and Welfare Minister Zevulun Orlev, a leader of a more moderate faction of the party, said he intended to stay in the government.
Without the National Religious Party, Sharon’s Likud party would be down to 55 seats, forcing it to look for a new coalition partner.
Eitam and Levy were angry over the Cabinet’s historic vote on Sunday to pull out of Gaza by the end of 2005 and said they could not sit in a Cabinet that intended to pull down settlements.
