Israeli forces have today begun evicting thousands of right-wing settlers who have defied the midnight deadline to evacuate voluntarily settlements from land the Jewish state has occupied for 38 years.
The massive military operation will usher in a period of uncertainty, amid fears that religious nationalist extremists who have infiltrated some of the 25 settlements slated for evacuation will forcibly resist eviction.
On the stroke of midnight troops began knocking on doors and using loudhailers informing residents of their obligation to leave the settlement of Neveh Dekalim. While half of the Gaza Strip's total 8,000 Jewish settlers are expected to have left their homes in the occupied Palestinian territory by today, thousands more, reinforced by up to 5,000 hardline supporters from outside the Strip, have vowed to resist.
The evictions will be handled by 52,000 unarmed troops in an operation the army hopes to complete within 10 days. In an early indication that the forced evacuations will be swift and decisive, thousands of paramilitary police and soldiers were massed in the Strip last night. At around 9pm local time, hundreds of troops poured into the Neveh Dekalim settlement, the municipal centre of Gaza's main settlement bloc, which has become a bastion of settler resistance.
The troops were met by emotional settlers crying and throwing themselves to the ground, and protesters calling them "Nazis" and setting fire to rubbish bins.
A total of 21 settlements in Gaza and four out of 120 in the northern West Bank are scheduled to be dismantled under prime minister Ariel Sharon's plan to "disengage" from the Palestinians.
The plan has bitterly divided Israeli society along the fault-line between its secular majority and the minority but vocal religious Jews. While most Israelis support the plan to pull out of Gaza's isolated and costly settlements, the early stages of the forced evacuation will be crucial if disengagement is to pass off with minimal internal turmoil.
Scores of families in the largest Gaza settlement of Neveh Dekalim in the Gush Katif bloc were preparing to leave as the midnight deadline approached last night.
Earlier in the day, radical youths scuffled with police who removed the main gate to the settlement in an effort to allow access to container trucks removing the possessions of settler families.
Police arrested at least 50 youths who scuffled with officers and pelted them with eggs in an effort to prevent the entry of the containers. By yesterday afternoon, police had also arrested more than 800 protesters attempting to infiltrate the Gaza Strip, but most were later released.
Several of Gaza's secular settlements, whose residents were not ideologically motivated, had already largely emptied before the midnight deadline. Dugit, a largely secular settlement on the northern edge of the strip, became the first Gaza enclave to be completely evacuated when the last of its 79 residents left yesterday.
Two of the four settlements due to be evacuated in the West Bank were also largely empty.