A large detachment of soldiers and policemen reached the hilltop at Havat Maon, near Hebron in the southern part of the occupied West Bank, where the outpost had been set up about a year ago. Havat Maon is the last of 10 illegal outposts in the West Bank ordered dismantled last month by Prime Minister Ehud Barak in a compromise with a leading settler group.

The settlers living at Havat Maon, numbering around a dozen, and their hundreds of backers set fire to barricades that they had set up in the past few days and shouted anti-government slogans, but put up little resistance to the soldiers who moved in around 3:30 a.m. (0130 GMT). Some settlers kicked soldiers and one family opened a gas container as the police and army tried to evacuate them.

The noise was deafening as the troops approached the settlers' mobile homes, with the settlers begging the soldiers not to remove them and shouting ``you don't have the right'' and ``don't do that''. But the soldiers, who had received psychological preparation during the past few days, moved in relentlessly and carted off the settlers one by one, though they were careful to avoid violence. Among the soldiers were women who removed the female settlers. Many of the settlers, who had promised ``peaceful resistance'' to their eviction, scrambled on top of the half-dozen mobile homes that formed the settlement.

Barak has had to juggle his desire to forge peace with the Palestinians by late next year with the demands of settlers, who make up a powerful political force in the Jewish state. Rehavam Zeevi, leader of the extreme nationalist National Union party who was in Maon as it was being evacuated, said Barak ``promised to crush terror, but he is using terror against Jews''. The future of around 170,000 Israelis living in 140-odd settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is one of the core issues to be tackled in talks aimed at forging an agreement by September 2000 on the final status of the occupied territories.

``We are not going to allow private initiatives of citizens to lead an elected government at a time when extremely sensitive decisions are being made,'' Israel's news agency ITIM quoted Barak as telling a press conference in Paris, from where he returned late Tuesday to Israel.

Malakhi Levinger of the right-wing settlers group Generation of the Future said Tuesday: ``We will not raise a hand against the soldiers, but we will return after our eviction.''Settlers had handed out leaflets calling on Israeli troops and policemen to ignore the order to evacuate Havat Maon, the largest of the 10 illegal outposts which also boasts a large wooden synagogue.

Israeli newspapers reported on Tuesday that certain rabbis had threatened to put a curse on any soldier who dared pull down the synagogue in Havat Maon. In October the Main Settlers' organisation, the Council of Settlements, agreed with Barak that it would see that 10 out of 42 wildcat outposts set up in the last year in the West Bank would be taken down.