JERUSALEM — Israelis formed a human chain yesterday stretching 55 miles from Gaza to Jerusalem to protest Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Gaza Strip withdrawal plan, as violence left six Palestinian militants dead and five Israeli children wounded.
The children, housed at a community center, were injured when Palestinians fired mortars at the largest Gaza settlement, Neve Dekalim, according to rescue services and the military.
The settlement is a frequent target of Palestinian rifle and mortar fire. The attack occurred as demonstrators were heading home.
Israeli helicopters targeted a house in Gaza City in two separate missile strikes yesterday, witnesses said. One bystander was slightly injured in the missile blasts, the witnesses said. The Israeli military had no comment.
Also, Israeli forces killed six Palestinians in the West Bank town of Tulkarm. Israel Army Radio said they were members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, loosely linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.
It was the bloodiest clash in the West Bank in a month. On June 26, Israeli forces ambushed Palestinian militants holed up in a tunnel in Nablus, killing seven.
Organizers of the human chain said they expected up to 150,000 Israelis to take part, about the same number that participated in a pro-withdrawal demonstration in Tel Aviv two months ago. Turnout appeared to be near expectations, with few gaps in the chain.
The chain began at Nissanit, a settlement in northern Gaza, and stretched 55 miles along roads and highways to Jerusalem’s Western Wall. Hundreds of rented buses carried people to various points along the route, and bullhorns instructed demonstrators to join hands.
“We came here to protest the program of expelling Jews from their land,” said Avraham Yitzhaki, 54, from the Gaza settlement of Ganei Tal.
Mr. Sharon announced in December that he planned to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements by the end of September 2005. The plan drew such fierce opposition from hard-liners that he fired two critics in his own Cabinet, forcing him to search for a new governing coalition.
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