NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip – Israeli forces began to drive Jews from their homes at midnight yesterday and will start to use force while doing so later today in this town in Gaza’s main cluster of Jewish settlements, Gush Katif. Soldiers and police officers quelled a string of skirmishes yesterday that at times escalated into violent confrontation.

While carrying out the current stage of the evacuation plan, Israeli officials made clear to Gaza Arabs that forces controlled by the Palestinian Authority would not be allowed to move into the evacuated areas for some time.

After a long day of clashes with settlers and their supporters, Israeli soldiers and police moved into Neve Dekalim yesterday to prepare to forcibly removing residents who have refused to evacuate. The town was chosen as the site for the first – potentially violent – such encounter, “because we are in there already, and because this is a tough nut to crack, and because you have to start somewhere,” the Israeli army southern district commander, Major General Dan Harel, said last night.

General Harel spoke at a press briefing after his soldiers had spent hours suppressing young demonstrators, who set fire to garbage cans, taunted police troops, and at one point poured a bottle of a bleach-based solution on soldiers and police. Since the army declared Gaza a closed zone for Israelis last month, settler supporters, most of them teenagers, defied the law to infiltrate the cluster. Many moved into Neve Dekalim as guests of residents.

When protesters attacked the large trucks that arrived here to haul settlers’ belongings out of town just before yesterday’s midnight deadline for them to leave voluntarily, a large number of policemen and army troops moved in. Members of the security forces sawed through Neve Dekalim’s main gate, which the settlers had kept closed since Tuesday morning to prevent the troops from entering town to deliver evacuation notices.

“We see a great difference in treating a family that has lived there for dozens of years and someone who came to demonstrate,” the Israeli police southern command chief, Superintendent Uri Bar-Lev, who oversees police activity in Gaza, told The New York Sun.

“We have to show great sensitivity toward someone who lived there with a family,” he said, adding that such sensitivity will not necessarily be afforded to protesters who entered recently with intention to disobey police and government orders.

As the evacuation plan progressed into its most delicate stage, Israel tried to curb the expectations of Palestinian Arabs, who have been anticipating the prospect of a Gaza Strip without Jewish settlers. Israeli officials reiterated that they will control Gush Katif and other former Gaza settlements for a while, even after settlers have been evacuated.

Palestinian Arabs should not “start celebrating too quickly,” Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said at a press briefing yesterday. He said the Israeli army would control the settlement areas for at least a month before handing control over to Palestinian Authority forces. Israel’s control may last until the end of the year, Mr. Mofaz said.

While acknowledging that security coordinators on her side were aware of the Israeli-proposed lag time, a spokeswoman for the Palestinian Authority, Diana Bhutto, said that from the Arab perspective the handover could not start soon enough.

“Although Israel’s colonization is ending … we still must end the military occupation of Gaza,” Ms. Bhutto told the Sun. Even after the handover by the Israeli army, she noted, Israel will control Gaza’s airspace, its sea, and its borders.

The army’s point man on coordinating the separation plan with the Palestinian Authority, Colonel Yoav Mordechai, said Mr. Mofaz meant to lower expectations among many in Gaza who believe they soon will be able to celebrate on the ground left behind by Israelis.

“The intensity of the media coverage led some of the population to understand that perhaps the exit will come early,” Colonel Mordechai said.

With Egyptian support, the Palestinian Authority, controlled by the Fatah party and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has tried to boost its presence across the Gaza Strip. General Harel said 24 battalions of up to 11,000 troops have been deployed across the narrow land, which is expected to become the main test case for Palestinian Arab self-rule and a possible future state.

For the moment, the general said, Palestinian Arab terror activity has dropped significantly. Yesterday, he said, there were only three shooting terror incidents, compared to the usual dozen or so a day. Right now, he said, “Terrorism is bad for the Palestinian interests.” But he added: “It is clear that once we move to the next stage, of evacuating the military as well, there is a possibility that there will be renewed motivation.”

Yesterday a group of politicians of the dovish Labor party, headed by a former prime minister, Ehud Barak, traveled to Egypt for a meeting with President Mubarak.

“The Egyptians are in daily contact with Mohammed Dahlan,” a Labor member of the Knesset, Colette Avital, told the Sun, referring to the Palestinian Authority’s security minister. Mr. Mubarak “told us he believes that Abu Mazen can take control of Gaza,” she said.

Ms. Avital said the Egyptian president is confident the violent terrorist organization Hamas will soon turn into a political party. And as a cautionary note, she said that after Israel won the Six-Day War in 1967, offers were made to Cairo to take Gaza back, but the Egyptians declined.

“They would not take it,” she said. “It was too expensive for them to maintain.”