Almost a quarter of the central committee of Israel's ruling right-wing Likud party favours dismantling Netzarim, a hardline Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, said a poll released Tuesday.

The survey released by the Israeli daily Maariv said although 65.8 percent of the powerful body remained opposed to a withdrawal from the fortified enclave on the Gaza coast, 22.9 percent were in favour while 11.3 percent did not have an opinion.

An entire army battalion is believed to guard Netzarim's 60 families, and a Palestinian attack on the enclave in which three soldiers were killed last month sparked doubts in Israel over the human and financial cost of clinging to isolated settlements.

The Labour party has already said that Netzarim should be evacuated, and former Labour leader Amram Mitzna had campaigned for last January's legislative elections on a pledge to completely pull back from Gaza.

Maariv ascribed the results of the poll to a slide to the left by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's party, which has historically taken uncompromising stances on territorial issues.

The poll also comes as the Israeli left is emerging from three years of dormancy and the so-called Geneva peace plan launched by some of its prominent members is gaining momentum in the face of Sharon's inability to find military solutions to the three-year-old Palestinian uprising.

The poll was carried out on a sample of 411 Likud members representing 10 percent of the central committee. No margin of error was given.