Israel evacuates 85 per cent of Gaza's settlers

Israeli forces have evacuated more than 85 per cent of Gaza's Jewish settlers after nearly 40 years of occupation and all should be out by tomorrow, police said on yesterday.

Following three days of forced evacuations, during which settlers were carried weeping from their homes and protesters pulled screaming from synagogues by unarmed soldiers, only four of the 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip remain.

The removal of settlements is the first from land that Palestinians want for a state under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for "disengagement" from conflict, backed by Washington as a possible step to peace.

In the Gaza Strip, Hamas militants said the withdrawal was a victory for the Palestinian uprising and vowed to turn the fight to the West Bank and Jerusalem after Israel quits Gaza. The group is committed to destroying the Jewish state.

Police spokesman Avi Zelba said 85 per cent of the houses in Gaza that were once home to 8,500 settlers were now empty. Some 1.4 million Palestinians live in Gaza's densely populated cities and refugee camps.

There were no evacuations yesterday, the Jewish Sabbath.

Security forces hope to clear three remaining settlements in Gaza's main Gush Katif settlement bloc today and outlying Netzarim tomorrow, before turning attention to two of four West Bank settlements that are also due to be evacuated.

A core of radicals opposes giving up any of the land captured in the 1967 war, which they see as a biblical birthright. Sanur and Homesh, built on West Bank territory, to which many religious Jews feel an even closer biblical bond than to Gaza, are seen as potential flashpoints because of an influx of rightist Israelis.

Rightists say the withdrawal is a victory for Palestinian militant attacks, a view echoed by the gunmen, and fear that uprooting Gaza's settlements sets a precedent for further pullbacks from the much bigger enclaves in the West Bank.