ATTEMPTS by Jewish settlers to stop the pullout from Gaza appeared to be running out of steam yesterday after thousands of demonstrators penned in by security forces for two days began drifting away.

About 10,000 were still holding out defiantly behind the barbed-wire fences of the farming community of Kfar Maimon, but last night their leaders postponed the march into the village indefinitely.

“We feel at this time it is not wise to confront the police and the army,” Bentzi Lieberman, head of the Yesha settlers’ council, said. “I request everyone who can to remain here and others to come back. We need to continue our struggle in the right way.”

Mr Lieberman added that thousands of supporters would return to the settlements in the coming weeks.

The air of failure engendered by the dwindling number of orange-clad protesters was compounded by a Knesset defeat earlier yesterday for government rebels who sought to postpone the pullout in a last throw of the parliamentary dice. Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Finance Minister, and Limor Livnat, the Education Minister, earned the scorn of both the Government and the settlers when they failed to show up for the vote, choosing neither to embarrass the administration of Ariel Sharon nor aid opponents of the withdrawal, which is scheduled for next month.

Moshe Karadi, Israel’s police commissioner, said he believed that the protest would fizzle out soon and hoped that it would not end violently. More than 20,000 police and soldiers continued to surround Kfar Maimon’s settlers.

As darkness fell, police drew up a water cannon, while the settlers linked arms around the fence.

Eli Corcos, 37, a marketing executive from Tel Aviv, said: “This battle in our country is symbolic. Like the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, we really believe that we can win.

“We’ve had a setback, but always in battle you change your plans.”

One brigadier-general dismissed the protest: “They need to do it for themselves, and Israel needs them to do it so they can make their point,” he said. “It’s a safety valve.”

Times Recommends

• UN may halt 400-year-old 'freedom of the seas'
• Where the Rosetta belongs can’t be set in stone
• Gas deal on hold, but Ukraine may pay in the end