The Israeli army shot dead six Palestinians today and an Israeli special forces officer was killed in a gunfight during a raid on Palestinian militants.
Violence in an almost four-year-old Palestinian revolt has flared since Sharon proposed an Israeli evacuation of all Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and some from the West Bank, planned for 2005.
Internal Security Minister Tsachi Hanegbi said he had "no doubt" there were Jewish radicals ready to assassinate Prime Minister Ariel Sharon or other top officials to stop the Gaza pullout plan.
Israel's parliament held a debate on remarks by Jewish radicals who oppose ceding any land taken in the 1967 war, warning it might incite violence. Parliament members called for all factions to condemn such remarks, which have led to a tightening of Mr Sharon's security.
Army commandos raided a residential building in the Ein Beit-Ilma refugee camp in the city of Nablus, killing two senior members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), residents and military sources said. The Israeli army said a special forces was killed and three commandos wounded in exchanges of fire.
Residents said the commandos also shot and killed two neighbours - a 50-year-old Palestinian academic and his 16-year-old son - at the door of their apartment.
In Gaza, Israeli troops killed two Palestinian militants who tried to assault their guard-post on the Kissufim road leading to the boundary with Israel, military sources said.
Mr Sharon, a right-wing former general who was once the godfather of settlement-building, intends to uproot all 21 enclaves in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank to "disengage" Israel from a long conflict of attrition with the Palestinians.
Polls show most Israelis back the initiative to move the 7,500 Jews in Gaza, who live alongside 1.3 million Palestinians. But rightist settlers in Gaza vow to resist removal.
"There are those who have already made the decision, that, when the time comes, they will 'save' the people of Israel," Mr Hanegbi told Channel Two television. "They will try to kill a minister, prime minister, a policeman, a military officer, I have no doubt."