Israeli troops began the forced evacuation yesterday of thousands of Jewish settlers gripped by rage and anguish over their expulsion from the Gaza Strip after nearly four decades of occupation.

Unarmed soldiers broke through burning barricades and marched door-to-door ordering people out in six settlements while police pushed protesters onto waiting buses.

Elsewhere settlers tearfully hugged soldiers before filing quietly onto transport taking them to Israel.

The operation, the culmination of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for the first removal of settlements from land Palestinians want for a state, began after a midnight deadline for Gaza settlers to leave or face eviction.

Palestinians watched from nearby rooftops, some recalling the loss of their own homes in Israeli raids in search of militants.

Sharon voiced sympathy for the evacuees in a television address. He urged them to blame him alone and not attack troops.

"I am responsible for this. Attack me," said Sharon, who has billed his plan as "disengagement" from conflict with the Palestinians.

But confrontation loomed as forces fanned out in the largest enclave, Neve Dekalim, where the hundreds of ultranationalist youths were holed up in a synagogue for a possible last stand.

Some settlers scuffled with soldiers, and a woman was arrested for stabbing and lightly wounding a soldier. A West Bank settler woman set herself ablaze in protest at a police checkpoint outside the Gaza Strip, suffering 60 per cent burns.

Taking heed of warnings, many of Gaza's 8,500 settlers packed up trucks ahead of yesterday's deadline to quit the Gaza Strip, home to 1.4 million Palestinians.

But the army estimated about half the settler population would remain in defiance. Polls show most Israelis back the pullout but rightist opponents call it a reward to Palestinian violence and a betrayal of Israel's biblical birthright.

Palestinians welcome withdrawal from any land captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

Loosely co-ordinating with Israel, thousands of Palestinian security men have deployed near Gaza settlements to ward off possible militant attacks.

Israeli officials raised the prospect the army could finish evacuation of settlers in as little as two days, speeding up an operation the military had said it hoped to complete by September 4.

(China Daily August 18, 2005)