Among the topics was a new proposal by settlers that would allow them to move en masse to a coastal area north of Gaza.

The fence-mending session ended without decisions, but with promises of further talks, according to Israeli media reports. It came a week after Sharon defeated the final parliamentary efforts by the plan's opponents to scuttle the withdrawal of an estimated 8,500 settlers in Gaza and hundreds of others in the West Bank.

Pro-settler activists have vowed to try to disrupt the evacuation through civil disobedience. But in a sign settler leaders are also readying for the transfer, they have sought increased compensation and asked to be moved as a group to a mostly undeveloped beachside area called Nitzanim.

Leaders of southern Gaza's main bloc of settlements, known as Gush Katif, say residents would be likely to move voluntarily if their communities remained more or less intact in a seaside setting similar to where they live now.

Under the proposal, 1,000 or so families - more than half of those slated for evacuation from Gaza - would relocate to a bloc of communities that would be built for them in Nitzanim, on the Mediterranean about five miles south of the port city of Ashdod. The remaining 600 families would move to nearby sites, or to other areas in southern Israel and the northern Galilee region where the government is encouraging resettlement.

Sharon is said to support the idea and has pressed Israeli planners to hasten preparations for the withdrawal, which is scheduled to begin in late July.

But the proposal drew immediate fire from Israeli environmental groups, which say that building new communities in Nitzanim would spoil a roughly 9,000-acre expanse of environmentally sensitive sand dunes, threatening vegetation and some wildlife species, including deer and reptiles.

Environment Minister Shalom Simhon also opposes developing the area.

''Building a bloc of settlements in the Nitzanim area would inflict far-reaching environmental damage on one of the most important landscapes in Israel,'' Simhon told Israel Radio.

Nitzanim is designated as a nature reserve, though it has also been used as a military firing range. Officials had previously ruled out relocating uprooted settlers there.

But they have encouraged residents to move in groups in order to preserve community ties and reduce the psychological strains of leaving their homes.

Proponents argue that the new communities would occupy less than a third of the area.

Tuesday's meeting marked the first time that Sharon has met with Gaza settler leaders during the months he has steered his withdrawal plan through his Cabinet and parliament.

Settlers once admired Sharon as the leading sponsor of the movement to build Jewish communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But many now deride him as a traitor.