Rightist Jews established a new Gaza outpost yesterday at a site where Israeli troops clashed with settlers while razing buildings to prepare for withdrawal from the occupied territory. Sunday?s flareup, in which 20 people were injured and a soldier was arrested for refusing orders to take part in the demolition, raised fears that Israel?s pullout from occupied Gaza and part of the West Bank in August would spark violence.

?We have proven that the army cannot kick Jewish settlers off their land,? rightist Arik Yitzhaki told the YNet media Web site. ?We can bring hundreds more civilians here to continue building the land.?

The Israeli army declined immediate comment on what it would do about the new outpost on the Mediterranean seafront where sworn foes of the pullout have been refurbishing derelict cottages as bastions of resistance to evacuation.Gush Katif council spokesman Avner Shimoni criticized the army for tearing down the buildings and vowed it would not sap opposition to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon?s plan to ?disengage? from conflict with the Palestinians. ?The tension here is great,? he said on Israel Radio. ?The people who want to reach us will do so whether or not they take down one or many abandoned buildings.?

On Sunday, young ultranationalists lay in front of bulldozers or clambered atop them to try to foil the demolition, chanting, ?Jews don?t expel Jews.? Soldiers and police dragged them away kicking and screaming.

Ten Israeli civilians and 10 soldiers were injured in the disturbances. One soldier who urged fellow soldiers not to raze the buildings was hustled away by other troops and will be put on trial, the army said. Israeli authorities fear that an influx of supporters into enclaves where 8,500 settlers live amidst 1.3 million Palestinians seeking statehood could complicate evacuations and heighten the risk of violence.

Biblical birthright

The army had destroyed 11 of the 21 villas when settler protesters arrived. The buildings, some little more than skeletons, had been holiday homes for Egyptian army officers before Israel captured Gaza in the 1967 Middle East war.The cottages are close to a hotel that Jewish rightists, many from hardline settlements in the West Bank, took over and reinforced recently as a base to fight evacuation. Israel plans to remove settlers from all 21 Gaza settlements and four of 120 in the West Bank. It will be the first evacuation of Jewish settlers from occupied territory that Palestinians want for an independent state.

For many settlers, the land is a Biblical birthright. Right- wing opponents of the evacuation say it would also be a victory for Palestinian militants waging an uprising since 2000. To display their strength, settlers and their supporters planned rallies across Israel during yesterday?s evening rush hour.

Polls show most Israelis support the evacuation, which will include several hundred settlers from the northern West Bank. Washington counts on the pullout as a catalyst for future talks on its Middle East ?road map? peace plan, but fresh bloodshed by both sides has frayed a four-month-old ceasefire.

<B>Ronen ZVULUN</B>