Israeli police have removed more than 450 pro-settlementsquatters from the former Jewish settlement of Homesh in the West Bank.

Mickey Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the police, said on Wednesday: "Policehave completed the evacuation of Homesh.

"There have been no injuries ... and no arrests."

Hundreds of police officers armed with batons were seendragging some of the hundreds of protesters who had remained at the site.

The move ends three days of confrontation after about 2,500demonstrators marched into the abandoned settlement on Monday saying they weregoing to rebuild it.

Disengagement move

Some set up large canvas tents and began to pile up rubble.

About 450 people remained as police moved in on Wednesday morning.

Homesh was dismantled in the summer of 2005 as part of former Israeli primeminister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan.

The area was established as a military outpost in 1978 and turned over tosettlers in 1980.

Ehud Olmert was elected last year as Sharon'ssuccessor on a pledge to evacuate additional West Bank settlements and draw Israel'sborders without waiting for a peace deal with the Palestinians.

However, that plan has been sidelined after he was politically weakened by Israel's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon lastsummer.

One demonstrator told Israeli army radio he would be back.

Yossi Dagan said: "Our goal is not to clash, but to return again and againand again until the flag of Israelwill once again fly over the lands we were expelled from because all thecountry understands now that the disengagement, the expulsion, was amistake."

Illegal settlements

While removing the Homesh squatters, the Israeli governmenthas shown far less resolve in evacuating settlers who have set up dozens ofunauthorised settlement outposts in the past decade.

Since the Israeli evacuation of Homesh in 2005 local Palestinians have not beenable to use it, primarily because of the continued presence of the army.

Government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said on Wednesday that Israel wouldremove the new outposts.

Around 270,000 Jewish settlers live in the occupied West Bank among about 2.5 million Palestinians.

The World Courthas ruled that settlements built on land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East Warare illegal.

Elsewhere in the West Bankon Wednesday Israeli troops killed an armed Palestinian in a Jenin refugeecamp, according to Palestinian security sources and witnesses.

Security sources identified him as a 21-year-old from al-AqsaMartyrs Brigades. They originally said he belonged to Islamic Jihad.

Source:Agencies