The Israeli cabinet yesterday gave the final go-ahead for the evacuation of a first batch of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, 10 days before the pullout is to begin, official sources said.

The vote came moments after Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tendered his resignation from the government over his opposition to the pullout plan, due to kick off onAugust 17.

Ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting nevertheless voted in favour of dismantling Kfar Darom, Netzarim and Morag, the three most isolated settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Security officials fear that outlawed Jewish extremists operating undergroundin Israel and the West Bank are

plotting an attack destined to unleash mayhem and torpedo the looming Gaza pullout.

Long-since dreaded, such fears have risen to the fore since a teenage religious Jew shot dead four Arab Israelis on a bus on Thursday in an argument over the impending pullout. The killer was laterlynched and killed.

Investigators know the 19-year-old army deserter belonged to the outlawed, anti-Arab racist movement Kach and that he was in contact with settlers in Tapuah, one of the most radical Jewish enclaves in the occupied West Bank.

Like thousands of other settlers and right-wing supporters, he fervently opposed the impending uprooting of all soldiers and more than 8,000 settlers from the Gaza Strip and four isolated northern West Bank

enclaves.

The arrest of three settlers from Tapuah, who were apparently aware of what Eden Nathan Zada was up to, have given rise to the possibility that other extremist Jewish outfits are planning similar crimes.

"We are concentrating on the possibility that one or several underground Jewish groups will decide to carry out an attack just before the pullout or during the evacuation of settlers from Gaza," a senior military official said.

Israeli intelligence has warned that extremists could try to wreck the pullout with a spectacular attack, such as assassinating the prime minister or striking at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Islam's third-holiest shrine.