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Israeli authorities begin removal of West Bank settlers

Israeli security forces attempt to carry Jewish settlers out of the synagogue during the evacuation of the Jewish settlement of Sanur, in the northern West Bank, yesterday. Thousands of troops pushed into two northern West Bank settlements, Homesh and Sanur, yesterday and began clearing out hundreds of extremists holed up inside, in the last phase of Israel's dismantling of 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the West Bank. PHOTO: AP

Israeli forces smashed their way into two West Bank settlements yesterday and dragged away ultrarightist Jews dug in for a last stand against evacuation after failing to foil a pullout from occupied Gaza.

Police stormed a citadel and synagogues in the Sanur and Homesh enclaves that had been fortified by radicals, drawing a hail of bottles, light bulbs, paint, ketchup, eggs and cooking oil as they began extracting diehard settlers.

Some were plucked from a synagogue roof in the scoop of one of the bulldozers that had rammed through barriers of burning tires and rubbish at the gates to Sanur and neighboring Homesh.

Palestinians want Israel to leave all of the West Bank and Gaza but Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has sworn to keep the biggest Jewish settlements in the West Bank, where some 230,000 settlers live among 2.4 million Palestinians.

Ultranationalists want to make the withdrawal from a pocket of the northern West Bank more painful than the generally smooth evacuation from Gaza, completed on Monday, to deter Israel from ever again ceding Jewish enclaves in occupied territory.

"You cannot force us out of the land of Israel."

an Israeli settler

In the face of threatened violent resistance in barricaded redoubts, security forces dispensed with extended negotiations used in Gaza and moved swiftly on radicals hunkered down in three synagogues, a seminary, an old citadel and private homes.

The young ultranationalists had streamed into the two enclaves from other West Bank settlements to bolster a few dozen remaining residents holding out against evacuation.

"You cannot force us out of the land of Israel," one settler mother screamed at soldiers arriving at her door.

After brief attempts to coax out occupants, police equipped with riot batons and shields broke easily into houses and used saws, pile-drivers and sledgehammers to batter their way into two fortified synagogues and a seminary.

They found praying youths prone on the floor, arms entwined, and wrestled to separate them and haul them out to buses.

After surrounding Sanur's citadel, they bashed down the door to take on far-right religious teenagers armed with iron rods and shields, some of them dancing on its roof. A rabbi was negotiating with them to leave peacefully.

But resident settlers in both enclaves began vacating their homes without violence, walking in resignation to evacuation buses. Others, mounting passive resistance, were carried out.

By midday, about 330 radicals had been removed from 19 buildings in Sanur and Homesh, an army spokesman said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas phoned Sharon to say he hoped the pullout would open a new chapter in relations and the two agreed to meet soon, Sharon's office said. The two last met on June 21 at a tense summit.

Unlike in Gaza, which Israel plans to hand over to Palestinians in October, the Jewish state plans to retain security control of the West Bank after the pullout there.
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