Forced Exit From Gaza Continues

(CBS/AP)  Jewish settlers sobbed and screamed, some of them ripping their shirts in mourning, as Israeli troops dragged them from homes and synagogues Wednesday, the beginning of the end of Israel's 38-year occupation of the Gaza Strip.

In the West Bank, a settler killed four Palestinian laborers in a shooting rampage, which Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon denounced as a twisted act of "Jewish terror" designed to stop the historic pullout.

Despite the escalation of Israeli-Palestinian tensions, the eviction of die-hard settlers and their nationalist supporters who flooded into Gaza in recent weeks moved forward with anguish, anger and tears, but more swiftly and smoothly than anyone anticipated.

Some 14,000 unarmed Israeli soldiers and police entered six settlements throughout Wednesday, forcibly evicting residents who refused to leave voluntarily. According to the army, 1,842 people were evacuated Wednesday. Of 1,600 families in Gaza's 21 settlements, only 600 remained by the end of the day.

Sharon proposed his "disengagement plan" two years ago to ease Israel's security burden and help preserve the country's Jewish character by placing Gaza's 1.3 million Palestinians outside Israeli boundaries. Under the plan, Israel will remove all 21 settlements from Gaza and four from the West Bank, the first time it has removed veteran settlements from either area.

By evening, five of the six settlements that troops entered in the morning were cleared, with resisters remaining only in Neve Dekalim, for months the epicenter of resistance. Morag, Bedolah, Ganei Tal, Tel Katifa and Kerem Atzmona were deserted.

Most of the demonstrators weren't even from the settlements, reports CBS News Correspondent David Hawkins. They're hardliners from inside Israel or settlers from the West Bank who illegally snuck into the Gaza Strip to disrupt the disengagement.

Soldiers and settlers clashed, argued and hugged, reflecting intense and mixed emotions at the uprooting of settlers whose government years ago encouraged them to move to Gaza for the sake of Israel's security.

Hawkins adds that some settlers begged soldiers to disobey orders and leave them alone. Others were enraged that the army that is meant to protect them has come to remove them.

"It's impossible to watch this ... without tears in the eyes," Sharon said, but he insisted the pullout would make Israel safer.

In general, however, the evictions were peaceful. While settlers routinely carry weapons, they displayed none when the columns of soldiers and police marched into their communities.

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