Gaza pull-out ends with settlers’ tearful farewells

THE last Israeli settlers in the Gaza Strip yesterday staged a tearful farewell procession past deserted homes, then left in convoys of armoured buses for Israel, ending a turbulent presence that critics have long denounced as a stumbling block to peace.

In the West Bank, thousands of troops surrounded two small settlements where some 2,000 extremists have holed up with an arsenal of stun grenades, gas canisters and automatic weapons, defying orders to leave.

Troops were due to move into the settlements after dawn today, in the riskiest operation yet of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to “disengage” from some Palestinian territory.