The Israeli parliament approved Monday a speech by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon focusing on his disengagement plan from the Palestinians by a majority of just one. Forty-six members of the 120-seat Knesset gave their backing for the speech, while 45 voted against the premier.

The premier gave almost no details of the plan, which he has said he will implement in the absense of any progress in the bilateral peace process with the Palestinians.

The project will see the evacuation of all but a handful of the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, while Israel will seek to strengthen its control over other settlements in the West Bank.

Sharon said he was still holding consultations with the military establishment and his allies in Washington, and he pledged to bring the completed package back to the Knesset at a later stage.

Instead he used the speech to attack the Palestinian leadership.

He declared no dialogue was possible as the leadership lacked the ability and courage to crack down on extremists such as those behind Sunday's twin suicide bombing in the southern port of Ashdod that left 10 civilians dead as well as the bombers.

Palestinian security services have drawn up a plan to keep the peace in the Gaza Strip if Israel withdraws from the volatile territory, including banning guns from being carried in public, Palestinian sources said Sunday. It calls for the new security measures to be implemented over a five-week period if Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon goes ahead with a proposal to unilaterally "disengage" from the Palestinians, including evacuating 17 of the 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza.

The plan was recently presented by the director of the Palestinian general intelligence services, General Amin al-Hindi, to a meeting of nationalist and Islamic groups in Gaza, the sources said.

It calls firstly for Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) to host a conference of the myriad security services, where they will be asked to re-pledge their loyalty to "the law and the traditional leadership elected by the Palestinian people," they said.

In the second week, Palestinian media will launch a campaign against people carrying weapons in public -- a common sight in the territory which has taken on something of a Wild West feeling amid the more than three-year-old intifada, or Palestinian uprising, against Israel.

The territory, a densely populated narrow coastal strip that borders southern Israel and northeastern Egypt, will also be divided into new security zones to be patrolled separately by different branches of the security services.

Palestinian police will launch in the third and fourth week a campaign against the stealing of water and electricity from public utilities -- practices which have become widespread amid rampant poverty -- and those who do not pay their bills.

In the fifth week, the PA will officially declare it illegal for anyone except the security services to carry guns in the streets and public places.

Violators will be arrested and officials have asked militant groups to support the ban, the sources said.

Sharon has said he will start implementing his plan in the next few months if there is no progress in the internationally drafted "roadmap" for peace with the Palestinians.

Its details remain fluid amid fierce opposition from far-right and settler parties, but it also calls for the construction of Israel's controversial separation barrier in the West Bank and the evacuation of some outposts in that territory.