Israeli settler kills three Palestinians as tensions rise

Thousands of Israeli troops dragged sobbing Jewish settlers out of homes, synagogues and even a nursery school today and hauled them onto buses in a massive evacuation, fulfilling Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s promise to withdraw from the Gaza Strip after a 38-year occupation.

In the West Bank, an Israeli settler killed three Palestinians and wounded two others, in a shooting spree that aroused fears of Palestinian retaliation and the disruption of the evacuation mission which had gone largely without serious violence.