MID-MORNING in post-occupation, pre-Palestinian Gaza and the sprinklers burst eerily into life, watering lawns whose owners have all been evicted from, or exhorted to leave, the Israeli settlements.

Streets that 48 hours earlier echoed with Hebrew prayers were empty save for the occasional rabbi or wandering settler granted a few more hours to absorb the silence before leaving.

In Neve Dekalim, the largest settlement which doubled as the Gaza settlers’ nerve centre and castle keep, pavements were littered with bottles of Eden mineral water, smouldering tyres and the exhausted bodies of Israeli soldiers sleeping where they dropped from their exertions over the past 72 hours.

A sand dune away, in the smaller settlement of Gadid, the soldiers mopped up the last pocket of resistance shortly before the start of the last shabbat (sabbath) in Gaza yesterday.

Braving flaming cars and a barrage of abuse and roof tiles, they removed a few resisting families and about 60 infiltrators, mostly ringletted young hardliners from the West Bank, who had barricaded themselves inside the synagogue.

Six people were arrested and one woman was taken to hospital after falling from a roof she had smeared with oil to hamper her eviction.

With 17 of 21 settlements in Gaza now cleared, and the occupants of the rest having agreed to go quietly after the weekend, Israeli bulldozers began crushing empty trailer homes in the settlement of Kerem Atzmona — the first demolitions since the withdrawal began.

“All in all, this is a victory for the security forces and for the settlers,” said Major-General Dan Harel, commander of the Israeli army’s first operation to remove Jews from Palestinian land.

Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister, will look back with satisfaction on an operation that took just a few days rather than the six weeks set aside.

A poll yesterday showed 59 per cent of Israelis now back his disengagement plan, and 61 per cent believed he has shown strong leadership.

He has won international praise for the pullout: President Mubarak of Egypt said it showed he was “capable of making peace . . . Sharon is brave and daring.”

The scenes of outrage and pain — displayed to great effect by a well-oiled Israeli publicity machine — will also strengthen his hand against future US demands for a similiar withdrawal from the altogether more emotive ancient Jewish heartlands of the West Bank.

Indeed, hundreds of hardline Jews are now heading for Sanur, one of four isolated settlements in the West Bank that Israeli troops will begin evacuating next week as an adjunct to the Gaza withdrawal. Settlers there have laid in provisions and fortified their homes.

Mr Sharon, who will visit Gaza next week to thank the security forces, condemned those who attacked police in the settlement of Kfar Darom on Thursday, calling them “barbarians”.

“When I saw the young people who tried to attack the evacuators from the synagogue roof, my feeling of sadness was replaced by one of rage,” he told Yediot Ahronot, an Israeli newspaper.

With the Gaza evacuations nearly complete, attention turns to the next stages: demolition of the settlements, the handover of their land to the Palestinians, and what happens thereafter. Pessimists on both sides have forecast that a Palestinian Authority addicted to corruption and mismanagement will mishandle its Gaza windfall, lose public confidence, and lose ground to Hamas, the militant group, in elections due next year.

But if the authority demonstrates capable stewardship of the newly acquired assets, Gaza could reap the political and financial benefits of large-scale foreign investment.

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