ISRAELI Prime Minister Ariel Sharon won vital support for his plan to pull out of the Gaza Strip on Sunday when two key cabinet ministers from his right-wing Likud party swung behind it.

Both Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Limor Livnat, each commanding a considerable Likud power base, pledged support.

After securing US President George W. Bush?s blessing in Washington on Wednesday, Sharon?s plan still faces a May 2 referendum among 200,000 Likud members ? many opposed to ceding any of the land seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Under the initiative, Israel would withdraw from Gaza, home to some 7,500 Jewish settlers and 1.3 million Palestinians. It would also abandon four small West Bank settlements.

Netanyahu?s office said ?he will support the plan? after his conditions had been met. Those included the completion of Israel?s controversial West Bank barrier and continued Israeli control of Gaza?s borders.

Israel says the barrier, facing legal scrutiny in the World Court, is being built to keep suicide bombers out of its cities. Palestinians say its route curving deep into the West Bank is a ruse to annex occupied land they want for a state.

Livnat said she backed the plan ?with a heavy heart? because the barrier would loop around the two big Jewish settlement blocs of Ariel and Maale Adumim. She said she also was pleased Israel would be allowed to keep large settlement blocs in any peace treaty with the Palestinians.

Bush?s assurances that Israel could expect to keep big chunks of West Bank land infuriated Palestinians who were further enraged by the Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi in Gaza on Saturday. Opinion polls show Sharon?s Gaza plan is popular among Israelis.

But Bush?s comments provided Sharon with ammunition to counter opposition from large segments of Likud that adhere to an ideology calling for Israel to settle West Bank and Gaza Strip lands it occupied since 1967. Israel?s cabinet will vote on the plan only after the Likud referendum.

The referendum could also decide Sharon?s fate. The former general, once seen as the godfather of the settler movement, has been bitterly criticised by settler leaders and many right wingers for planning to uproot any Jews at all.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian mourners cried for vengeance on Sunday for Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, slain by Israeli missiles even as the Jewish state plans to quit the group?s Gaza stronghold.

The Hamas military wing pledged ?100 retaliations? for Rantissi, 56, the second leader of the militant Muslim group to be assassinated by Israel in less than a month. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin died in a previous missile attack on March 22.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon praised the army for Saturday?s helicopter strike on the firebrand Rantissi, Hamas?s political leader in Gaza, and pledged his country would continue to ?fight terror?.

Sharon told his cabinet the killing was part of a dual strategy to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza, occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war, while striking militants.

Rantissi?s body was carried aloft on a stretcher draped in a green Hamas flag. Mourners kissed his shrapnel-sliced face and others tossed flower petals onto the body. Fists shook at the sky in anger as four Israeli warplanes roared overhead.

?The blood of Yassin and Rantissi will not be wasted. Their blood will force the eruption of new volcanoes?, one militant cried. Thousands took up the refrain of revenge, chanting ?We will sacrifice our souls and blood for Rantissi.?

Suicide bomber

Rantissi, an Egyptian-trained paediatrician who was outspoken in support of violence against Israel, died when two missiles slammed into his car hours after a suicide bomber killed an Israeli soldier at northern Gaza?s Erez crossing. Rantissi was buried on Saturday in Gaza?s Martyrs? Cemetery.

Hamas has so far failed to carry out the kind of massive attack it had promised to avenge Yassin?s death.

Faced with an Israeli threat to wipe out all its leaders, Hamas said it had named Rantissi?s successor but would keep his identity secret. Palestinian sources speculated the new leader was either Mahmoud al-Zahar or Ismail Haniyah.

Rantissi?s killing stoked Palestinian anger already high over US President George W. Bush?s statement last week backing Sharon?s pull-out plan ? which would also let Israel keep some West Bank land Palestinians want for an eventual state.

Protests against Rantissi?s assassination erupted across the West Bank in scenes that recalled the start of an uprising more than 3-1/2 years ago. Israeli troops used tear gas and rubber bullets to drive back stone-throwers.