Largest Gaza Settlement Evacuated

Israeli security force on Thursday completed the evacuation of Israel's largest settlement, Neve Dekalim, officials said.

During the day, troops dragged out hundreds of pullout opponents who had holed up inside Neve Dekalim's synagogue in a defiant last stand. By Thursday night, all the settlers and their supporters were gone, army and police confirmed.

It was a sight many thought they would never see: Israeli troops storming Gaza settlement synagogues Thursday and dragging fellow Jews out of the buildings.

The protesters in Kfar Darom responded by hurling debris, lightbulbs filled with paint, bags of milk, eggs and what police said was acid at the troops, in the most violent confrontation since the forced removals began this week.

As forces cut through the barbed wire to reach the synagogue's roof, some protesters used sticks to try to push away the ladders used by security forces to reach the roof. Other soldiers reached the roof via shipping containers hoisted by a crane.

A sign hanging from the roof said, "We won't forget. We won't forgive."

Thousands of troops rushed up a ramp to the synagogue in Neve Dekalim, after throwing sand on cooking oil that the protesters had spread in their path and hours of unsuccessful negotiations.

The settlers could be heard over a loudspeaker urging the soldiers not to go into the synagogue. "Don't evacuate Jews from this holy place," said the announcements.

CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger reports the settlers had been playing this sort of psychological warfare with the soldiers, telling them that removing them from the synagogue is wrong, that it's against the Bible, that it's against God, that it's against Zionism.

In the end, the men were carried out of the building, while the women were escorted out on their feet, reports Berger.

Capturing the Neve Dekalim and Kfar Darom synagogues is an important victory for the forces. The people inside — mostly extremist youths from the West Bank and Israel, not Gaza —provided some of the fiercest resistance to the pullout.

The presence of four settlers with weapons at another settlement forced troops to postpone that outpost's evacuation and send in negotiators.

Settlers elsewhere burned houses, fields and tires in protest.

"They don't understand why the government is doing that to them. There is no peace agreement, there is no promise that the terror will stop, there is no promise that this is the last withdrawal," member of parliament Yuli Edelstein told Berger.

On the second day of the forced evacuation of Gaza, troops encountered stiffer resistance than at the start of the operation Wednesday. But security officials said they expected to clear out all 21 Gaza settlements by Tuesday, more than two weeks ahead of schedule.

Residents jeered the forces throughout the day, driving several soldiers to tears. "You're right. Cry like we are crying," shouted one settler who was loaded onto a bus, still wearing his white prayer shawl. By midday, 200 people had been removed, the army said.

Noga Cohen, who had three children maimed in a Palestinian shooting attack on a bus, said Israel was surrendering to Palestinian militants. On the door of her house was a sign. "In the event you knock on the door, you are a direct partner in the most terrible crime in the history of the nation of Israel."

"Why did you become a soldier? To be in this crazy situation?" screamed a young mother in Kfar Darom, cradling a baby, as soldiers entered her home.

In another house, a husband and wife lay on the floor, shrieking and clutching their small children. A soldier participating in the evacuation of a religious school suddenly disobeyed orders and was quickly carried away by troops.

Troops also burst into a nursery school crowded with protesters. People sang and danced as the troops entered, and about two dozen young children were playing with toys. Troops quickly cleared out the building.

Just a few yards outside Kfar Darom, dozens of Palestinians stood on the roofs of their houses watching the evacuation.

"For the first time in the last few years, I'm standing here without any fear that Israelis will shoot at me because their battle today is against themselves," said Mohammed Bashir, a Palestinian farmer.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proposed his "disengagement plan" two years ago to ease Israel's security burden and help preserve Israel's Jewish character by placing Gaza's 1.3 million Palestinians outside the country's boundaries. Israel has occupied Gaza for 38 years.

The Palestinian Authority and the United States want the pullout to be the beginning of the "road map" peace process, meant to bring about an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Palestinian militants are portraying the pullout as a victory for their suicide bombings and rocket attacks, and some Israelis fear they will resume their violence once the withdrawal is complete.

At the Seeds of Peace international summer camp in Otisfield, Maine, recently, which brings together teens from areas of conflict, co-anchor Harry Smith talked with alumni campers from both sides of the conflict.

"Getting out of Gaza doesn't mean that we get our freedom back," says Ruba, a 25-year-old Palestinian. "I hope it's going to be for the best of everyone but, seriously, I don't trust the Israeli government now."

Says Yossi, a former Israeli soldier, "We all have our own fears and, when we come to speak about peace, we're not talking about hugging every day and all day, but we're talking about hard situations and how we can find a solution for it."