The rusty tower looked unremarkable. But to the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, it was technically an "unauthorized outpost," one of 14 erected as adjuncts to nearby Israeli settlements that the army pledged today to destroy as part of Israel's commitment to the current peace plan, called the road map, between Israelis and Palestinians.
 

To the angry Israeli settlers who live nearby, the downed tower was a frightening portent: that Mr. Sharon may be willing to bargain away the right they believe that Jews have to inhabit land in the West Bank and Gaza that was seized from Palestinians after the 1967 war. "This is the first step," warned Yudah Yifrach, 27, one of several hundred settlers who came here to protest the tower's removal. But to Palestinian leaders and critics of the settlements, the demolition of the tower showed just how little the Sharon government was actually willing to concede, at least now, in the early stages of the peace plan. At the same time, the army tore down two trailers — both, like the watchtower, empty of people — that constituted another outpost, called Neve Erez South, about 15 miles from here. The move against the outposts came after the Israeli Army demolished 13 Palestinian homes early today in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun, including one belonging to a militant, Mussa Sakhawil, who helped carry out a shooting on Sunday that left four Israeli soldiers dead.

The West Bank settlement of Ofra  was established in the mid-1970's.

By tonight, the army reported that it had dismantled five of the outposts, none of them inhabited. Of the 14 outposts scheduled for destruction in the next few days, 10 are uninhabited and so, critics argue, their removal is only the most tentative step toward complying with the peace plan.

"It's a phony show that has no value," Nabil Abu Rudaneh, an aide to Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, said in a telephone interview tonight.

Few issues present a greater challenge to the peace plan's success than the question of the roughly 200,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. The plan now backed by the Bush administration has chosen to grapple first with that question through the phenomenon of outposts, which are difficult to define.

For several years, Israeli settlers have been expanding the reach of their communities by erecting what they call outposts, usually on nearby hilltops. They generally consist of a few structures, some with water and electricity, put in place for various overlapping reasons, as a marker for future expansion or as retribution when Palestinians kill Israelis.

Critics contend that some were built exactly for moments like this one: when a peace plan would require concessions that would chip away at the settlements. Many of the outposts are uninhabited.

The first phase of the peace plan requires that Israelis — led by Mr. Sharon, a longtime supporter of the settler movement — dismantle all the outposts erected in the last two years since he came to power. Peace Now, an Israeli group that monitors settlements, says 62 such outposts have been built since 2001, mostly in the West Bank.

But Mr. Sharon's government puts the number closer to 100 and says that it will destroy only those outposts built without government authorization, a qualification not included in the peace plan itself.

The dispute over what exactly constitutes an outpost was evident tonight as soldiers tore down the tower on a hill near the settlement of Ofra, which was founded near the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the mid-1970's. It also showed the complications for Mr. Sharon as he seeks to comply with the terms of the peace plan without alienating his core political constituents. 

On one hilltop is a community called Amona, founded three years ago and holding roughly 25 young Jewish families and their children. On another, until tonight, was the watchtower. Peace Now said it considered the houses and the tower part of the same outpost. The government apparently disagreed, dismantling only the tower and saying it had taken down a separate outpost. 

"The whole story is rather tricky," said Dror Etkes, who monitors settlements for Peace Now. "The government obviously has right now the interest to present itself as dismantling settlements. But I think what they are doing now is splitting existing outposts and giving them separate names." Until now, he said, his group considered the tower part of the outpost. "Obviously, they don't want to dismantle Amona, with 25 families very established."

Mr. Etkes emphasized that he did not rule out that Mr. Sharon — who shocked many Israelis last week by using the word "occupation" to describe the Israeli military presence in the West Bank and Gaza — might take on some of the more populated outposts in the coming weeks.

"We might see in the next days some surprises," Mr. Etkes said. "We must all admit that the last two weeks in Israel were quite surprising."

That was the fear of the several hundred settlers who gathered at the site of the watchtower tonight as the sun was setting. They prayed and chanted. Most relevantly, they blocked half a dozen Israeli Army vehicles seeking to carry the tower away.

Like the hard-liners on the Palestinian side, the settlers said they were opposed to the road map plan: The Bible grants the land to Jews, they say, and so they have the right to be there. Plus, they say, any peace plan is a reward to terrorism. 

"Let's say after Al Qaeda bombed one of the buildings," said one settler, Chaim Bloch, 41, referring to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, "they said, `Let's start negotiating on the second building.' What would you say to them?"

There are fears in both the Palestinian and the Israeli camps of violent confrontations between factions over the peace effort. 

"We will do everything in our power to ensure that there is no violence, that not one person raises his hand or his finger on an Israeli soldier or policeman," said Ezra Rosenfeld, an official with the Yesha Council, a settlers' group, which has vowed to rebuild any outpost that is destroyed. "But there may be those who will ignore our request and who will actively resist evacuation."

Recent opinion polls show that most Israelis support the removal of all outposts. A new poll released today by the Jaffee Institute for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv showed that 59 percent of Israelis would support such a removal, an increase from 50 percent who said the same thing a year ago. In addition, 56 percent of those polled said they would support a unilateral withdrawal from all settlements as part of a peace accord, up from 48 percent last year. 

"It's a relaxing of opinion" stemming from the perception of a lesser threat to Israelis' security, said Asher Arian, a professor who directs the poll. "The other part is a perceived direction signaled by the prime minister, and I think public reacts to that. Our public opinion at this moment reacts to this prime minister."