MIDDLE EAST: Shortly before 9am yesterday, a phalanx of black-clad Israeli police officers and unarmed troops marched down the main north-south road of Gaza's Jewish settlement blocs towards the largest community of Neveh Dekalim.
The residents were waiting for them and had barricaded the entrance to prevent the troops distributing eviction notices to householders, signalling the start of Israel's historical pull-out from land it has occupied since 1967.
And so began a day-long stand-off as a line of unarmed police officers, trying to look inscrutable behind sun glasses, faced a line of mostly teenage girls who sang songs and told them how, as fellow Jews, they loved them.
The sweet words were accompanied by free pastries and candy lollipops, all part of the settlers' strategy to induce the security forces to refuse orders.
"The point is to show the army that we love them and ask them to don't do it," explained Esti Hababo (15), one of some 5,000 non-residents who have swarmed to the coastal strip in recent weeks to show their support for its embattled residents.
Israel's first uprooting of settlements - all 21 in the Gaza Strip and four of 120 in the West Bank - is deeply traumatising for religious Jews, who see the occupied land as their biblical patrimony.
As part of yesterday's Operation Hands to Brothers, busloads of Israeli troops entered several of the strip's more secular settlements, informing people they must leave by tomorrow or face eviction and forfeiture of some of the handsome compensation payouts. But in an apparent bid to avoid early confrontations, the army said yesterday it would not go into five settlements, including Neveh Dekalim, where they will face resistance, until evacuation day tomorrow. While some residents packed their belongings into moving vans yesterday, teenagers and families lolled around in the shade of date palm trees eating ice cream.
Every now and again, the community's public address system would burst forth with instructions for protesters; go to the gates, clear away from the gates.
The atmosphere was not quite festive, but was certainly good- humoured, with people praying and singing songs about their love of the biblical land of Israel.
But there is an edginess to the ultra-nationalist teenage youths who have infiltrated the strip recently. Around midnight on Sunday, youths attacked military vehicles just outside the gates of Neveh Dekalim, smashing headlights and a windscreen and scuffling with soldiers.
Yesterday, they were running around in their knitted skull caps, with the tassels of their prayer shawls flapping in the sea breeze, blowing whistles and blocking the main road with industrial size wheelie bins, tyres and curls of razor wire. "We are just kids," said one teenage boy to the police officers. "Look into our eyes and see if you want to fight us."
When settler leaders asked the crowds around Neveh Dekalim's front gate to part yesterday to let in lorries carrying freight containers to people's homes, there were grumbles from some youths that these could be Trojan horses sent in by the army.
While both settlers groups and the army expect that half of Gaza's residents will have left by the expiry of the deadline tomorrow, there are fears that diehard extremists will hole themselves up in public buildings and confront evacuating troops
"I'm from Texas originally and I'm worried about this turning into Waco," said one visiting settler, referring to the siege of the Branch Davidian cult in Texas in 1993. "Some of these young people have very strong beliefs."