Sanur, West Bank (CNSNews.com) - Israel evacuated two West Bank settlements on Tuesday completing the eviction stage of the disengagement plan and signaling the coming end of a 38-year Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip and greatly reduced presence in the northern West Bank.

More than 7,000 police and soldiers were used to remove 620 anti-pullout protesters and residents from the northern West Bank settlement of Sanur and another 709 from nearby Homesh in what was the last stand against the disengagement.

Israeli troops completed the evacuation of 21 Gaza Strip settlements on Monday - an operation that took just five days.

Four northern West Bank settlements were included in the disengagement plan, but Ganim and Kadim, which were further north, evacuated voluntarily several weeks ago.

However, unlike the Gaza Strip here, Israel plans to hand over land completely to the Palestinians - possibly within four to six weeks - and Israel will maintain a security presence in the West Bank, at least temporarily.

There is a very large area that could be used for launching missiles and rockets at the nearby Israeli city of Afula, a security source said.

Israeli security officials are warning of an upsurge in terrorism in the West Bank following the disengagement.

The northern West Bank is a "major stronghold of terrorist activity," said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's spokesman Dr. Ra'anan Gissin.

Although security forces had warned that there could be more trouble with anti-disengagement protesters in the West Bank than in Gaza Strip settlements, resistance to evacuation was actually less than in several Gaza Strip communities.

Police used a bulldozer in the early morning hours to knock down the gate to the Sanur community, which had about 35 families before the disengagement.

Some 100 anti-pullout protesters barricaded themselves on the roof of an old fortress in Sanur and dozens more barricaded themselves inside the building. A sign across the front of the stone building read, "Cursed is he who evicts his brother from his home."

Police used cranes to hoist two shipping containers onto the roof of the former British police station to bring protesters down off the roof. It took police several hours to evacuate the place.

In Homesh, formerly a community of some 70 families, protesters threw oil on soldiers through a window in the religious boys' school, where they had barricaded the door with furniture and books.

Finally protesters sat down and linked arms as soldiers loosened a metal grid and entered through the window and cleared the doorway. One by one security forces pried the protesters apart and took them outside to buses to be evacuated.

The Israeli army chief of staff Dan Halutz said that in less than a week, some 15,000 people had been removed from the Gaza Strip and West Bank. There were about 9,000 permanent residents living there prior to the disengagement.

Another 6,000 anti-pullout protesters had also made their way to the settlements in the last weeks and months in order to bolster the communities and try to prevent the withdrawal from taking place, Halutz said.

Gissin told reporters at an army base just outside the West Bank that Israel had undertaken to carry out the disengagement plan in order to shorten its defensive lines, put itself in a better security position, and open up an opportunity for negotiations with the Palestinians that would return the two sides to the path of the Road Map peace plan.

But he made it clear that the next move would have to be on the part of the Palestinians.

Gissin likened the disengagement to a battery with jumper cables that had started the engine of the peace process. The question is whether the Palestinian side will put the engine in drive or reverse, he said.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas telephoned Sharon on Monday evening and welcomed the implementation of the disengagement plan, the prime minister's office said.

The two men agreed to meet soon, but no date was mentioned for the meetings, the office said.

President Bush also congratulated Sharon for having made what he called "a very tough decision." He said the next step in the path back to the road map was that the Palestinians had to establish a working government in Gaza.

According to Gissin, there would be no more unilateral withdraws from land like the disengagement, but rather withdrawals would only take place in the context of the road map peace plan, which has a sequential order, he said.

The Palestinians must now collect illegal weapons and end incitement, Gissin said.

See Earlier Stories:
West Bank Residents Fear Disengagement is Only the Beginning (March 18, 2005)
West Bank Village Expects Influx of Israelis to Block Disengagement (Apr. 21, 2005)

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