HAVAT MAON. West Bank. Nov 10: The Israeli army moved in before dawn today to dismantle a rogue Jewish outpost in the West Bank, where defiant settlers and their supporters had dug in behind burning barricades. reports AFP.

In a five-hour operation starting at around 3:30 a.m. (0730 BST). some 1.000 soldiers and policemen cleared the hill-

top 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.

Bulldozers demolished homes after the army said It hall removed some 250 settlers camped out on the site and taken them off in buses to the nearby Gush Ezion settlement bloc.

Some 50 people were arrested for assaults, threats and disrupting the evacuation, the army said.

Havat Maon was the last of 10 wildcat outposts in the West Bank ordered dismantled last month by Prime Minister Ehud Barak in a compromise with a leading settler group.

Tlie dozen settlers living at Havat Maon and some 250 of their supporters set fire to barricades erected over the past few days and shouted anti-government slogans.

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," ana "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.

"We are trained to fight in battle against enemies, not , against Jews ... so it’s of course a " difficult mission," said Major General Moshe Yaalon, head of the Israeli army's Central Command, who oversaw the operation.

Among the soldiers were women who removed the female settlers.

Many of the settlers, who had promised passive resistance to their eviction, scrambled on top of the half-dozen mobile homes that formed the settlement.

Barak, who returned to Israel from Pans late Tuesday, went ahead with the evacuation despite an appeal by three Israeli ministers for a 10-day delay.

"No-one in Israel is above the law. The government cannot negotiate with those who do not accept our authority." Barak's security advisor Danny Yatom told Israeli radio.