GADID SETTLEMENT (Gaza Strip), Aug 19: Israeli forces pulled some of the last remaining Jewish settlers out of Gaza on Friday as recriminations reverberated over the storming of a synagogue in the most violent clash of the historic pullout.

With the evacuation operation winding down for the weekend, police and soldiers evacuated settlers from only one community, Gadid, on Friday.

The army announced that it had ended the evacuation operation in Gadid at around lunchtime.

Six people were arrested and one woman was taken to hospital after slipping from the roof of a single-storey which she had smeared with oil in a bid to hamper her evacuators.

Two dozen radical Israeli youths managed to escape their evictors to flee into a Palestinian enclave. Hours later, only two of them had been retrieved.

The army described the resistance overall as “very mild”, in stark contrast to events Thursday at a synagogue in the settlement of Kfar Darom where hardliners hurled corrosive liquid, oil and dirt bombs at unarmed riot police.

“Jews don’t expel Jews,” was the common cry as Israel’s operation to end its 38-year occupation of the tiny strip of land gathered pace.

All but three of the 21 Gaza Strip settlements have either been officially classified as empty or have been almost completely evacuated, and the process of demolishing the empty homes has begun.

“All in all this is a victory for the security forces and for the settlers,” said the commander of the pullout operation, Gen Dan Harel.

He said the operation would be suspended for the Sabbath, the Jewish holy day of rest beginning at sundown Friday, adding: “The last settlers will probably be evacuated by Tuesday or Wednesday.”

The operation has sharply divided the Jewish state, with many settlers accusing their one-time champion Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of betrayal.

But Palestinians have welcomed the pullout as a victory for the resistance to four decades of occupation and the international community hopes it will mark a new page in efforts to bring peace to the turbulent Middle East.

“My heart danced for joy when I saw the smoke rise from Neve Dekalim and the settlers being chased out,” said 38-year-old Rasmi Sahlul who used to earn $65 a day as a farm labourer on the settlements.

The army said troops had dragged out almost all the protestors in the synagogues at Kfar Darom and in the main settlement of Neve Dekalim, where hundreds of chanting Jews had staged a two-day blockade, locking arms to prevent their eviction.

A heavy silence hung over Neve Dekalim on Friday morning.

Medical sources said 75 people, including 31 police and soldiers were wounded during Thursday’s operations while about 250 protestors were arrested after the Kfar Darom clashes — rare scenes of Jew violently confronting Jew.

Some officers left the Kfar Darom synagogue in only their underwear and washed themselves down with water after being sprayed with corrosive liquid.

A young woman clutching a baby was among those who were herded out of the synagogue, whose foundation stone was ironically laid by Sharon a decade ago.

The prime minister voiced his rage at those who attacked police trying to eject them, branding them “barbarians”.

“I saw this bunch of wild people attacking police, border police and soldiers and I said to myself that this was a criminal act, simply that,” Mr Sharon told the Yediot Aharonot.

Next week he heads to Gaza to personally thank the security forces.

While the pullout has cost him the enmity of the settlers who once saw him as their champion, Mr Sharon has won international praise for the move.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the pullout illustrated that “Sharon is capable of making peace.”

“He has the power, the determination, the ability and the security concept for how to make peace,” he told Yediot. “Sharon is a leader. Sharon is brave and daring.”

In an interview with the New York Times, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stressed that Israel’s obligations for peace with the Palestinians extended beyond the current pullout. “It cannot be Gaza only,” she said.

But Mr Sharon has pledged to pursue settlement activity in the West Bank — action that defies an internationally drafted peace plan for the Middle East.

While Mr Sharon has portrayed the pullout as an act of strength, radical Palestinian movements such as Hamas are painting it as an act of surrender, celebrating the end of Israel’s presence in the territory. —AFP