ALARMED by escalating violence, Israel’s Government yesterday brought forward the opening round of Ariel Sharon’s Gaza pullout by sealing off the Gaza Strip and evicting far-right Jewish settlers.

In a show of overwhelming strength hundreds of police commandos stormed the Palm Beach hotel where 150 of the most extreme anti-disengagement activists were dug in, and cleared it within half an hour.

But even as Israeli forces clashed with their own extremists in Gaza, Palestinian militants in the West Bank claimed to have kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in Nablus.

The Israeli Army refused to confirm whether any soldiers were missing, but officials confirmed they were carrying out a head count. Palestinians said an Israeli military vehicle had been found abandoned in the city, and Palestinian security forces were searching for captives to pre-empt an incident that could provoke a crisis between Israel and Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority if they were killed.

The claim was made by what appeared to be a splinter group of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, an armed offshoot of Mr Abbas’s Fatah faction.

The Gaza action came after the Israeli military declared the 25-mile by 3.7-mile Strip a closed military zone to stop the arrival of ultra-nationalists intent on reinforcing the 9,000 settlers who face forcible evacuation when Mr Sharon’s disengagement plan begins in earnest in mid-August.

Busloads of security forces in riot gear went from room to room, dragging some settlers out by their arms and legs. The squatters burnt tyres in protest.

“There’s no doubt they were preparing for siege here. We found boarded-up windows and supplies of tyres and bottles filled with fuel,” General Dan Harel, the Israeli military commander in Gaza, said.

The closure, which Israeli officials said may only be temporary, came after Mr Sharon’s fury at televised scenes a day earlier of a Jewish settler mob beating and stoning a 16-year-old Palestinian youth, who had to be rescued by Israeli soldiers and journalists.

Mr Sharon ordered police to crack down on the extremists, many of them followers of the assassinated far-right Jewish rabbi Meir Kahane, who advocated expulsion of Palestinians.

The group who beat Khaled el-Astal had taken over a building in the area of Gaza’s main Gush Katif settlement block where Palestinians known as the Mawassi live, spraying it with graffiti such as “we will murder Sharon” and waving a sign proclaiming “Mohammad is a pig”.

Capitalising on Israeli revulsion at such brutality, Mr Sharon told one Israeli paper: “The battle now is not over the disengagement plan, but over the image and future of Israel, and under no circumstances can we allow a lawless gang to try to take control of life in Israel.”

In recent days settlers have closed roads, forcing police to use water cannon against gangs of mainly teenage protesters who threw nails onto roads to close the main route into Jerusalem.

Explaining the decision to close Gaza, an Israeli Defence Forces statement said: “In the past 24 hours factors opposing disengagement have radicalised their activities in Gaza, including repeated violations of law and order as well as harm to Palestinian residents of the area. We have information that further groups of Israelis may be moving towards Gaza in an attempt to provide back-up for the rioters.”

The clashes are likely to be the first of many as Mr Sharon moves toward an inevitable showdown between the government and opponents of withdrawal.

“Almost without our realizing it, disengagement is already upon us, and the situation will only get worse,” Amir Rappaport wrote in the Israeli newspaper, Ma’ariv.

A majority of Israelis support Mr Sharon’s disengagement plan, but it has stirred deep divisions between those who believe it could kickstart the peace process and ultranationalists who believe Jews should not expel their fellow Jews from any part of the land they claim was promised to them by God.

Israel’s roads are filled with cars fluttering orange pro-settler ribbons, and blue for supporters. Shrewd Palestinian drivers sport orange, to minimise their chances of being stopped by police.

Disengagement opponents are also appealing to Israeli soldiers to refuse orders. Yesterday an Armoured Corps soldier told his commanders he would refuse to take part in the closure, the second case in recent days. Brigadier General Eyval Giladi, head of strategic planning in Mr Sharon’s office, said he did not believe refusals would be a major problem, despite the threats.

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