Israeli Soldiers Storm Seminary

With sparks flying, Israeli soldiers on Tuesday sawed through the shuttered windows and front door of a Jewish seminary crowded with opponents of the West Bank withdrawal and prepared to drag the protesters away.

Dozens of youths remained seated on the floor, praying noisily, as soldiers quietly streamed into the building through the window. The troops removed tables and prayer books piled up at the main entrance, as the youths locked their arms and legs together to resist the evacuation while they continued to pray.

Many of the youths were in tears.

Also Tuesday, troops cleared out the nearby settlement of Sanur, the military.

To clear out the settlement's synagogue, Israeli forces used a trick that worked in Gaza, as CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger watched.

"Cranes are now lifting a container with about 20 soldiers onto the roof of the synagogue here. That's where about 50 of the last settler holdouts are," Berger reported. "The soldiers are going to go up there and remove the settlers by force, and then this West Bank settlement will be evacuated."

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday called Israeli President Moshe Katsav and praised the pullout from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank, Palestinian officials said.

The two men said they were willing to meet every time, said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

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CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger watches the Israeli army's efforts to clear the last holdouts from Sanur.

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Katsav asked Abbas to carry out Palestinian obligations to disarm the militants, Erekat said.

Homesh is among four settlements in the northern West Bank that Israel is dismantling. The West Bank pullback follows the just-completed withdrawal from all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip.
Although fears of armed violence failed to materialize Tuesday, the reception was openly hostile. Troops were forced to burst through piles of furniture and saw through shuttered windows to enter homes. Women cursed and threw objects from rooftops. Angry residents, their faces red with rage, shrieked at the soldiers.

Many families demanded that soldiers carry them away, and security forces nervously tried to figure out what to do with children separated from their parents.

"They are taking my father," a little boy screamed from the window of his home. "Why are you taking my father from me?" said the boy, who wore a skullcap and orange T-shirt that has come to symbolize opposition to the pullout. Within half an hour, the house had been cleared of about 15 occupants.

At one Homesh home, a female soldier walked out with a crying baby in her arms and took the infant to a waiting bus. Another soldier carried a silent, young girl who wore a pink, bunny-rabbit backpack.

One woman angrily told the forces that her husband had been killed in the settlement. "Seven years ago, Shlomo was killed here and now you are throwing me out of my house?" she screamed.

Graffiti was scrawled onto almost every home in Homesh. Trash lined the streets, and small bonfires set throughout the town sent clouds of black smoke over the settlement.

"Expulsion equals murder," read one of the writings. "A sensitive expeller is like a considerate rapist," said another.

Two of the settlements marked for demolition — Ganim and Kadim — emptied out long ago. While most residents of Homesh and Sanur also have left, hundreds of extremists — many of them teenagers — entered the area in recent months to bolster opposition.
Dozens of teenage girls took over a Homesh home, singing and dancing in the front yard. As soldiers approached, a middle-aged woman ordered the girls to scurry inside. A man placed barbed wire around the house, and the girls locked themselves inside — many of them barricaded on the second floor.

Garbage and mattresses were strewn on the ground floor, the stairs and cabinets were vandalized and graffiti covered the walls. "We won't forget. We won't forgive," said one of the signs. A girl prayed in the window as soldiers began taking the girls away.

At another house, a man exited with an Israeli flag around his shoulder. "You are going against this nation. Your grandparents in their graves are ashamed," he told the troops.

Women and children poured out of the house, while a group of men remained inside, singing and praying. Soldiers carried the men away one by one.

In Sanur, one of the centers of resistance was a home inhabited by the Adlers — a family who recently relocated to town from a hardline West Bank settlement. Although the parents were arrested earlier this month, their six children, including an infant, remained behind with grandparents.

About 20 young protesters huddled on the kitchen floor of the home and screamed at the top of their lungs as soldiers entered. "Aren't you ashamed? You came to throw me out and you tell me to calm down," said one of the boys. One teenager wore a yellow Nazi-style Star of David.