KISUFIM JUNCTION, Israel – Prime Minister Sharon addressed the country yesterday, acknowledging the “pain and tears” of the Jewish settlers in Gaza and the West Bank who received evacuation notices from Israeli soldiers at dawn. Mr. Sharon’s political adversaries on the right began to concede that this stage of the Israeli government’s separation plan was all but over.

Inside Gaza, tensions flared between security forces and Jewish residents, a sign of what may lay ahead for tomorrow’s planned start of a forced evacuation of settlers who have refused to depart voluntarily. Mr. Sharon’s strategy adviser, Eival Giladi, said he believed half of the 8,000 settlers would leave before the legal grace period to do so is over at midnight tonight. He said the government would provide housing to those who go peacefully.

Thousands of Israeli police and army troops entered settlements at daybreak yesterday to hand settlers government papers that ordered them out of their homes. Residents were given 48 hours to do so willingly. Soldiers and police officers aimed to avoid direct confrontation with settlers, according to spokesmen. Maintaining such a distance was at times difficult, as settlers closed entry gates and tried to engage troops in political discussion. At the Gush Katif settlement’s largest town, Neve Dekalim, there were scattered skirmishes, mostly with young men and women opposed to the evacuation who defied Israeli law to protest in support of the settlers. In some cases, police gave up their efforts to deliver evacuation notices as a result.

Rabbis and older settler leaders tried to calm the young supporters and kept channels to police and army commanders open, in an attempt to prevent confrontations that could escalate into violence.

Thousands of Fatah troops controlled by the Palestinian Authority also began deploying yesterday around the soon-to-be-evacuated settlements, in an attempt to curtail violence by Palestinian Arabs. Several mortar devices were fired at settlements yesterday amid days of celebration in Arab cities in Gaza. No one was hurt.

In his three-and-a-half-minute speech, which was broadcast by all of Israel’s main television stations, Mr. Sharon called the settlers “pioneers” and assured them the government would address their needs.

“Your pain and tears are an integral part of this nation’s history,” the prime minister said, calling the settlements he once championed “a glorious chapter” of Zionism.

“We are one nation,” he added, saying the plan approved by the authorities will be carried out. Mr. Sharon said that in the past he believed that Israel could hold onto the settlements, but he now knows the country can no longer control any part of the Gaza Strip.

Here, at the only gateway to the main cluster of Jewish settlements in southern Gaza, traffic consisted mainly of police and army units and politicians entering the area in a sign of solidarity.

A Knesset member, Uzi Landau, said he came to show solidarity with the settlers and the troops. Mr. Landau has risen recently to become a competitor, along with Benjamin Netanyahu, to lead the ruling Likud Party, which Mr. Sharon helped build in the 1970s and which now seems on the verge of political split.

Mr. Landau told The New York Sun that soldiers and residents alike were “thrown into this impossible situation” by the prime minister. He conceded that battle for Gush Katif and the other settlements has been all but lost. “I came to apologize to the people here, for we failed the struggle,” he said.

Mr. Landau left the Sharon government soon after the prime minister began considering the separation plan two years ago. Yesterday, Mr. Sharon chastised Likud members who continue to serve in the government even as they oppose the plan. Four cabinet members, led by Education Minister Limor Livnat, voted yesterday against carrying out the final stage of the evacuation plan. Reflecting poll results that show that most Israelis support the separation plan, the Sharon proposal was passed by a majority of cabinet ministers.

Another member of the right-wing Likud faction that has spoken out against Mr. Sharon’s plan, Yechiel Hazan, told the Sun the struggle is far from over. Yet he, too, said, “The people inside have conceded and want to leave.” Mr. Hazan said the government is far from supplying adequate solutions for the problems of the settlers who leave.

Not all settler leaders were prepared to give in, however, and many expressed concern that the current evacuation of all 38 Gaza settlements and four in the northern West Bank was only the beginning. They said they worried that other settlements would be evacuated later. Despite making declarations against violence, leaders in some of the hard-line settlements told Israel Radio that they might be willing to use force in an attempt to keep their homes.

Some settler leaders were unimpressed by Mr. Sharon’s speech.

“This was an inane and unconvincing attempt at speechmaking, which was prepared by Sharon’s advisers,” a Gush Katif spokesman, Eran Sternberg, told the Sun. “He never got around to explaining why he is doing all this.”

In his speech, Mr. Sharon, better known for pragmatism than eloquence, said the unilateral separation plan is “Israel’s answer to the current situation.”

“This plan is good for Israel in any possible scenario,” he said.

The world awaits the Palestinian Arabs’ response, he said, and the onus is on them.

“An extended hand will be answered by an Israeli olive branch,” Mr. Sharon said, “but fire will be answered with fire, which would be harsher than ever.”

Mr. Netanyahu, just returned from a fund-raising visit to America after stepping down from his post as finance minister in protest of the withdrawal, told Israel’s Channel 1 Television that giving away assets such as the settlements without concessions from the Palestinian Arabs would only intensify terrorism and lead to further demands of concessions.

“Some Palestinian groups will try to do something,” a Knesset member, Dani Yatom of the Labor party, the leftist partner in Mr. Sharon’s ruling coalition, told the Sun. “But the main powers, even Hamas, have an interest in the completion of the Gaza plan with no major attacks against Israel.” He urged Mr. Sharon to start negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

Mr. Yatom said he was greeted with open arms yesterday by residents of Kfar Darom, considered one of the hard-line Gaza settlements. The visit, however, was mostly dedicated to apologies by his hosts, as some young settlers who saw Mr. Yatom parking his car showed their anger against his dovish views by puncturing a tire.