Thursday, August 18 2005 11:03 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Eshkol: Israeli troops yesterday (Aug 17, 2005) forcefully evicted Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip as they moved to end nearly four decades of occupation of the Palestinian territory in the midst of open defiance and resistance.

As the deadline for the settlers to leave the Strip voluntarily expired, thousands of Israeli troops backed by bulldozers entered seven settlements and dragged people out of their homes and synagogues.

The settlers, some of them sobbing and resisting, were loaded on to waiting buses. Tempers ran high and scuffles between soldiers and settlers broke out at several places.

Israeli troops found and detonated an explosive belt in a Palestinian town in the Gaza Strip. Military sources said an initial investigation indicated that the belt was intended to use in an attack in Gush Katif, a cluster of settlements Israelis are evacuating under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan.

In one incidence of violence, a Jewish settler shot dead three Palestinian workers in the West Bank.

"Prime Minister Ariel Sharon takes seriously this act of Jewish terrorism targeting innocent Palestinians that was carried out with the depraved idea that it can stop disengagement," Sharon's office said in a statement.

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas denounced the act and urged for 'restraint.'

"This crime is an attempt to sabotage the Gaza pullout," his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said.

Palestinian militants fired a mortar shell at an Israeli

In another incident, Palestinian militants fired a mortar shell at an Israeli army position in southern Gaza, military sources said, adding there were no casualties.

There were reports of Palestinian youngsters throwing stones at an Israeli tank outside Neve Dekalim, Gaza's largest Jewish settlement.

The tank crew responded with teargas and fired shells.

Several hundred settlers broke out of Kfar Darom, a settlement due to be evacuated in the next few days, pushed large cinderblocks off a bridge and tried to torch a nearby Arab house.

Palestinians threw stones at the settlers until Israeli troops arrived, doused the fire and pushed settlers back into the settlement.

The day's worst act of protest was the self-immolation of a West Bank settler woman opposed to the pullout set herself on fire at a checkpoint outside the Gaza Strip, suffering burns over 60 per cent of her body.

While settlers had to be forcefully evacuated from the main settlement of Neve Dekalim, they walked out of their own in other areas.

Chaotic situation prevailed in Neve Dekalim, where troops even entered a synagogue amid prayers.

Israeli officials claimed that around 60 per cent of Gaza's 8,500 residents had left or been evicted and that evacuation was going faster than expected and could be over in two days.

Earlier, Sharon urged the pullout opponents in Gaza Strip not to attack the troops involved in the evacuation process while admitting that his 'heart breaks' when he sees settlers being removed from their homes.

"It's impossible to look at this (removal of settlers from their homes) without weeping yourself," Sharon told reporters after a meeting with President Moshe Katsav.

His remarks came after a female soldier was stabbed by a woman opponent of the pullout who had infiltrated the settlement of Morag.