NITZAN, Israel – As Israel finished evacuating the bulk of Gaza’s settlements yesterday and 70% of the 8,000 Jewish residents were bused out, many settlers found themselves living at hotels across Israel, unclear about their future.

Israeli army troops and police officers encountered more resistance yesterday from young demonstrators, with the most dramatic confrontation occurring at a synagogue at Kfar Darom, just outside Gush Katif. But the second day of forcible evacuation, a key stage of the operation dubbed “A Hand to Brothers,” was mostly marked by relative calm. A few smaller villages in northern Gaza and two of the four Jewish settlements in the northern West Bank have yet to be evacuated.

“We carried out our plan,” the army’s southern command chief, Major General Dan Harel, said at a news briefing just outside the Gaza Strip. Thousands of unarmed police and army troops accomplished their mission while abiding by the motto “low violence, negotiations, touch, hug, and then evacuation,” General Harel said. Senior officers forecast last night that the entire Gaza pullout could be completed by Monday, two weeks ahead of schedule, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Many supporters of the settlers felt that their voices had been heard throughout the operation. “We showed the country that we are a true force,” the head of the West Bank and Gaza settlement movement, Yesha, Bentzi Lieberman, told The New York Sun, adding that the group’s actions this week will discourage future evacuation of Jewish settlements.

There were isolated outbreaks of violence yesterday. At the hard-line Kfar Darom settlement, located just outside Gush Katif, a few dozen demonstrators, the majority of them teenagers staying as guests of village residents, pelted police officers with paint-filled light bulbs, eggs, and soiled diapers from a synagogue roof. When the protesters refused an order to leave, police attempted to lower a cage by crane onto the roof to arrest the, but engineers advised the security forces that the roof was too fragile.

Instead, officers climbed ladders to reach the demonstrators, who then began throwing harder objects, such as rocks, iron pipes, and a skin-burning concoction that contained acid.

At the small community of Beit Yam, where only five families live, security forces tackled a potentially explosive situation. The town’s leader, Arye Yitzchaki, shut himself in his beachfront home and told radio and television stations, which covered the standoff live, that he was armed and prepared to defend his home by any means necessary. His wife and several young houseguests waved flags from the roof. After long and tense negotiations – at times conducted by officers of his former elite army unit – Mr. Yitzchaki walked out brandishing a flag.

At the largest town in Gush Katif, Neve Dekalim, most long-term residents had been evacuated by Wednesday, but yesterday about 300 people who had infiltrated town in the last few weeks locked themselves inside a Sephardi synagogue compound. Troops entered the synagogue in the late afternoon, and soon emerged carrying out men and boys. The confrontation ended several hours later. Torah scrolls removed from the ark were kissed by both settlers and soldiers.

A day earlier, the charismatic security chief of Gush Katif, Ami Shaked, had addressed young women in the synagogue’s female section. “If this was another community, I would hug each one of you,” the long-haired local hero, who has saved lives during terrorism incidents, told a group of giggling girls. Mr. Shaked spoke of “Gush Katif’s way”: If residents chose to take arms against the government, no one could execute the plan, he said.

The early decision by settler leaders to avoid violence, coupled with the meticulous planning and careful negotiating by police and army commanders, has defined the operation. Neither the orange-clad settlers, nor the police in their black overalls and light-blue shirts, nor the olive-green uniformed and blue-vested army troops, the red capped press hordes, or even the white shirted diplomats who came to observe at Neve Dekalim, expected the evacuation to be over in less than a week.

But the ordeal is far from over for some former Gaza residents now looking for a new place to live.

After volunteers finished hooking up the satellite system at Mazal Berger’s new house here in Nitzan, scenes of shoving and pushing of Gush Katif appeared on the screen. Ms. Berger turned away and asked that the TV be turned off. “I can’t take this anymore,” she told the Sun.

Three days ago, Ms. Berger arrived at this temporary housing lot just north of the city of Ashkelon after leaving the Gaza settlement of Gedid, where she and her husband Haim lived for 16 years. Volunteers, mostly young men from settlements in the Golan Heights or the West Bank, helped lay down a new lawn in front of Ms. Berger’s house. Bulldozers cleared lots for construction and workers laid red roof tiles.

“Sharon only had a designated date,” Ms. Berger said, referring to the prime minister’s separation plan. “He did not think of the human beings that are involved.” At Gedid, she said, she was about to sign a new contract for exporting her hothouse tomatoes. Now, even after she moves to a permanent house, it will be smaller. While nearby orchards might be converted to areas where tomatoes can be grown, she said she might have to pay to use that land.

Nevertheless, Ms. Berger was among the luckier ones who signed a deal with the government early, left willingly, and did not risk fines for disobedience. According to Haim Altman of the body handling settler compensation, Sela, the government established towns like this to help even those families that refused to negotiate. Many evacuees complained that the solutions offered by the government were insufficient.

A package was devised to compensate settlers with several hundred thousand dollars, based on the time they have lived in Gaza, the number of children in the household, and relocation costs, with bonuses for those who moved to regions near Gaza. Ms. Berger, who came to Israel from India after moving there from Nepal, said that being forced to leave Gaza was not the hardest part. “It was the way it was done,” she said.