Israeli settlers pack to leave. (Reuters)

GAZA CITY, August 15, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Israel officially launched its Gaza Strip pullout Monday, August 15, sending police and soldiers to deliver 48-hour eviction notices in Jewish settlements where hundreds of hardliners blocked gates and vowed defiance.

Israeli occupation troops started delivering eviction notices at 07:00 a.m. in all 21 settlements in Gaza Strip and four of 120 in the West Bank, Reuters reported.

The occupation army sealed off the occupied Gaza Strip overnight and began deploying after daybreak to tell settlers they must leave by Wednesday, August 17, or be forcibly removed.

Under floodlights after midnight at the Kissufim Crossing on the Gaza border leading to the Gush Katif settlement bloc, the Israeli army lowered a gate with a red sign that declared: "Stop. Entry into the Gaza Strip and presence there is forbidden by law."

Along a side road, a constant stream of settlers and trucks loaded with belongings were seen leaving the settlements Sunday in compliance.

By rare agreement with Israel, 7,500 Palestinian security men were deployed Sunday to the outskirts of the settlements to ensure calm in the final countdown to Israel's evacuation of Jewish settlements.

The pullout to end Israel's 38-year occupation of Gaza Strip is hailed by Palestinians as a victory and decried by Israeli opponents as a surrender to the Intifada and resistance.

But the Palestinians fear Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon devised the Gaza plan as a ruse to cement Israel's hold on most of the West Bank, where 230,000 settlers and 2.4 million Palestinians live.

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told Israeli army on Monday that Israel intends to keep control of six West Bank settlement blocs in a final peace deal with the Palestinians.

Mofaz singled out Maale Adumim and Gush Etzion, which are both close to Al-Quds (occupied East Jerusalem).

The occupation army intends to leave the Gaza settlements and the four isolated enclaves in the West Bank by September 4.

It plans to complete the Gaza pullout in October, when the last Israeli troops are scheduled to leave.

But it plans to retain control of Gaza's airspace and possibly its border crossings.

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In an apparent bid to avoid early confrontations, the Israeli army said it had decided not to go into five of the 21 Gaza settlements, widely seen as bastions of defiance, until evacuation day after settlers said the soldiers would not be welcome.

Israeli police said they were halting plans to deliver eviction notices to residents of Neve Dekalim after hundreds of settlers blocked the main entrance to the settlement.

"If they don't let us inside, we are not going to force our way in," police spokesman Superintendent Eli Levi told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"We are not going to enter the settlement. They have two days to evacuate of their free own will but at midnight on Tuesday it's the end."

Around 1,000 settlers were massed inside the main entrance to Neve Dekalim, singing and praying and calling on soldiers and police to disobey their orders.

Hundreds more stood at the gates of the settlement, where tyres and coils of razor wire blocked the road.

The Israeli security forces had positioned a water cannon opposite the main gate but did not activate it at any stage.

But troops swept in without opposition to the more secular settlement of Nissanit, already largely abandoned, according to Reuters.

An Israeli settler on Sunday declared an "independent Jewish authority" made up of extremists opposing the pullout.

"I hereby declare an independent Jewish authority that will one day become an independent Jewish state," proclaimed Arik Yitzhaky, who lives in the tiny beach-front community of Shirat Hayam in the main Gush Katif settlement bloc.

He told a news conference he had written to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to ask him to recognize the "Jewish authority".

Another settler torched his home, farm warehouse and minibus before leaving the enclave of Rafiah Yam.

Hundreds of Gaza settlers have signed state compensation deals to leave, but the army said 5,000 pullout opponents had slipped into the enclaves, raising fears of violence.

Jewish ultranationalists violently opposed to Israel's first ever evacuation from occupied Palestinian land staged Thursday, August 13, one of the largest demonstrations Tel Aviv has ever seen.

Looter Soldiers

Israeli soldiers put up a sign at the Kisufim check point closing the entrance to the Gaza Strip. (Reuters)

As Israeli soldiers were knee-deep in delivering eviction notices and convincing extremists of the key move, others were caught stealing from settlements.

Two Israeli soldiers suspected of looting from an abandoned settler home were to appear before a military court, army radio said.

The two were arrested on suspicion of dismantling an air conditioning unit from an empty house in the settlement of Peat Sade before returning the item to the property.

Soldiers apparently caught stealing a fridge on camera by Israel's private Channel 10 television station were also being investigated, the radio added.