TEL AVIV, Israel – Reviled by right-wing demonstrators who hope to defeat his plan to evacuate all Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and some from the West Bank, Prime Minister Sharon scored a significant victory yesterday in the Knesset when it voted to remove the final political hurdle to evacuation by striking down legislation that would have delayed any action for a year. The voting results underlined the wide public support Mr. Sharon enjoys here.

Also yesterday, Israelis followed closely a standoff between thousands of demonstrators demanding to march toward the main Jewish cluster of settlements in Gaza, known as Gush Katif. Since Monday night, entire families of settler supporters have waited in the summer heat surrounded by 20,000 police officers in a southern village just a few miles from Gaza, Kfar Maimon, for a chance to protest Mr. Sharon’s separation plan.

[At about midnight yesterday, opponents of Israel’s pullout abandoned their efforts and headed home, according to the Associated Press.]

In a battle of wills, both sides yesterday made a play to sway public opinion toward their respective causes. The settlers’ march on Gush Katif was orchestrated to coincide with yesterday’s Knesset vote.

Even as some members of the ruling Likud party voted in favor of the proposed legislation to postpone evacuation, and others, such as Mr. Sharon’s rival, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were absent at the vote, the anti-separation move was defeated 69-41.

“This is proof that the Knesset and the public support the separation plan,” Mr. Sharon told reporters after the vote. He vowed to begin evacuation “as planned” on August 15. As for the settlers, he said, “I understand their pain and I love them. I hope we will be able to get over this episode and return to unity. We are one people.”

Yesterday marked five months since the separation plan was first approved by the Knesset and some politicians said that the government now has the legal authority to enact it immediately. “If it is possible, we should do it,” the Israeli vice prime minister, Shimon Peres of the Labor party, told Israel Radio.

According to a multisided pact signed yesterday, agricultural greenhouses in Gush Katif are to be transferred to Gaza Palestinian Arab villagers and monetary compensation to Israelis will be backed by Washington.

In Gaza, armed street battles between the Palestinian Arab ruling Fatah party’s armed forces and Hamas operatives started up again yesterday, despite a cease-fire agreement reached early yesterday morning. The Palestinian Authority, controlled by Fatah, insisted it alone should handle Gush Katif’s assets once they are transferred to Arab control, but Hamas has demanded to be included as well.

The drama at Kfar Maimon, meanwhile, entered its fourth day yesterday. Camping on the private lawns and gardens of supportive residents, the demonstrators hope to march to Gush Katif, where they could join up with the 8,000 Gaza settlers whom the government has vowed to evacuate. Last night, the settlers’ leaders broke off negotiations with the southern district police chief, Uri Barlev, demanding to negotiate with the top commanders of the army and police.

They would not be allowed to go to Gaza, which the government declared a closed security zone last week. “If they do, blood will be spilled,” Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Channel 2 television.

Settler leaders insisted that their campaign is nonviolent. “We don’t want to be triumphant over the army,” Knesset Member Yitzhak Levy of the National Religious Party, who lives in Kfar Maimon, told the Sun.

Mr. Sharon was the main target of the demonstrators’ ire. One-time allies chanted about “the Sharon family,” hinting at alleged political corruption by the prime minister’s sons. Until yesterday, Mr. Sharon avoided public appearances. “This is not directed at him personally,” Mr. Sharon’s spokesman, Raanan Gissin, told the Sun. “This is directed at the nation’s rule of law.”

Now that the battle over Gush Katif is all but over – and the government has won – the settlers are making a stand against possible future evacuations.

Today Mr. Sharon plans to visit Ariel, a large Jewish town beyond the line marking the pre-1967 Israeli border, which Palestinian Arabs claim as theirs. The visit is meant to appease the right and signal – as Secretary of State Rice lands here – that Mr. Sharon intends to leave several settlement clusters under Jewish control. Many settlers fear that he plans to evacuate Jews from most other West Bank areas.