Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday he hoped to persuade Palestinians peaceful dialogue was the way to statehood after an Israeli pullout from Gaza that militants claimed as a victory for armed struggle.

Declaring the "jihad" or "holy struggle" of confrontation with Israel over, Abbas said it was time for what he called the "greater jihad" of economic revival, rule of law and talks with the Jewish state to achieve a lasting peace.

Abbas said he has been promoting that message at recent public rallies celebrating the first evacuation of Jewish settlements from Israeli-occupied land Palestinians want for a state.

"The people are responding in a remarkable way. The people's beliefs are changing," he said.

"All those who opposed the Israeli disengagement plan, including (armed) factions, now welcome it and celebrate it, and the pullout is taking place quietly."

Hamas, an Islamic fundamentalist group committed to Israel's destruction, has voiced another message at rallies of its own.

It, along with other militant groups, agreed to maintain a "calm" with Israel until the end of 2005 in response to a truce Abbas and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared last February.

But Hamas officials say Sharon's decision to scrap all 21 settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank shows that attacks against Israelis in an uprising that began in 2000 have been effective and resistance against occupation must continue.

Hamas and Abbas's secular Fatah faction, which calls for statehood through peace talks with Israel, are vigorously competing to claim victory for the Gaza withdrawal.

With a parliamentary election scheduled for January 25, a battle of the banners has erupted on the streets of Gaza.

In the interview, Abbas called any attempt by factions to take credit for the Israeli pullout "silly and petty."

"What I am doing is not celebration," Abbas said, referring to speeches he made in the run-up to the withdrawal and during the forcible removal of Gaza's 8,500 settlers over the past week.

Also on yesterday, Israel said it completed the evacuation of all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.

But in the West Bank, radicals opposed to ceding settlements dug in for a last stand at two enclaves that also are due to be removed today under Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's pullout plan.

(China Daily August 23, 2005)