MIDDLE EAST: As the last of Gaza's 8,000 Jewish settlers bade an emotional farewell to their homes in the occupied coastal strip yesterday, Israeli troops prepared to finalise the disengagement operation today with the forcible evacuation of settlements deep in the West Bank.
Thousands of police and soldiers will today enter the settlements of Sanur and Homesh, where security forces expect resistance from some 2,000 right-wing extremists who have flocked to the hilltop communities, until recently home to just 300 residents.
Police yesterday arrested 87 activists who were trying to infiltrate the two settlements and an army communications position near Homesh was set on fire by protesters.
The residents of two other isolated West Bank settlements, also scheduled to be dismantled, have already left voluntarily.
Both settlements to be evacuated today are located northwest of the major Palestinian city of Nablus, creating a focus of Israeli control close to large Palestinian population centres.
West Bank settlers believe God bequeathed to the Jewish people the territory they call the biblical region of Samaria.
Sanur's settlers were yesterday preparing for a stand-off on the roof of a stone building, which served as a military post under the Ottomans and as a police station under the British, but which currently houses an art gallery.
Security officials were reported as saying that the West Bank protesters had hoarded stun grenades and tear-gas.
However, Yediyah Lerner, a spokesman for the Homesh settlement, denied such reports, saying the residents would barricade themselves into their homes, but were unarmed and would resist only with eggs, flour and emotional pleas to evacuation forces.
Meanwhile, the last Jewish settlers to be evacuated from Gaza held a farewell march behind Torah scrolls and a massive menorah (ceremonial candelabra) yesterday before boarding 30 armoured buses.
About 500 residents of the Netzarim settlement put up no resistance after reaching an agreement with the military on a quiet departure. Due to its isolated location in the centre of the Gaza Strip, Netzarim has been the target of frequent attacks by Palestinian militants, and it had an entire Israeli army battalion guarding it. Palestinian homes close to its perimeter were razed.
Israeli forces began evacuating the 21 Gaza settlements last week, more than a year after Mr Sharon concluded that Israel could no longer defend its 38-year-old occupation of the coastal strip, which the 1.2 million Palestinians living there claim as part of a future state.
While Palestinians and others in the international community are pushing for a quick renewal of peace talks, Mr Sharon told evacuating troops at the weekend there would be no further unilateral withdrawals from land Israel seized in the 1967 six-day war.
Mr Sharon emphasised that progress would depend on a halt to Palestinian violence and said that Israel would continue building in the West Bank, where some 240,000 settlers live.
Mr Sharon and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas spoke by telephone yesterday and said they were pleased that Israel's Gaza pull-out had gone so well, a Palestinian negotiator said.