Olmert defends W.Bank pullout plan amid Gaza crisis

JERUSALEM, June 27 (Reuters) Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said today he was determined to push through a West Bank withdrawal plan despite spiralling hostilities with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which Israel quit last year.

Cross-border violence culminating in the abduction of an Israeli soldier by Gazan gunmen on Sunday has stoked rightist criticism in Israel of the go-it-alone pullbacks championed by Olmert in the absence of peace talks with the Palestinians.

Though he has ordered the army to prepare for a possible reinvasion of Gaza, Olmert told parliament he had no regrets about Israel's withdrawal from the coastal territory after 38 years of occupation and said his West Bank plan was on course.

''I have not backed down or changed my mind about the enormous historical importance of the (Gaza) disengagement plan,'' Olmert said to heckling from ultra-nationalist lawmakers.

''I am convinced that in the coming years the State of Israel will realign into new borders which will obligate us to redeploy significantly,'' he said.

Under the ''realignment plan'', Israel would remove isolated Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank while annexing others in blocs behind a fortified border.

Palestinians seeking statehood in all of the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, condemn Olmert's plan as a land-grab that could kill off peacemaking.

With Hamas Islamists in charge of the Palestinian government and refusing to recognise the Jewish state's right to exist, Olmert's vision of stop-gap withdrawals has won tacit support abroad -- less so his plan to set Israel's border unilaterally.

In Israel, polls show waning support for Olmert given the flare-up of fighting. The liberal Haaretz daily editorialised on Monday that the realignment plan was ''off the agenda for now''.

Olmert said he had not given up hope of a negotiated peace accord if Hamas accepts Western pressure to soften its stance.

''Despite even the difficult current circumstances, I say here that we will make every effort to find a way for us to hold talks with a Palestinian party that will meet the standards set by the international community,'' he said.

Hamas gunmen were involved in Sunday's cross-border raid but the Palestinian government has denied responsibility. Hamas also recently briefly resumed rocket fire from Gaza, calling it retaliation for bystander deaths in Israeli air strikes.

With calls mounting in Israel for a major military sweep of Gaza, Olmert said any such move would not mean reoccupation.

''We never abjured our right to go wherever is needed in order to protect Israeli citizens, to defend Israel and come back home -- not to build settlements and outposts,'' he said.

Reuters HS RS2304