As Israeli troops make their final preparations for next week's immense Gaza withdrawal, they are expecting the greatest resistance to come from the remote Sanur settlement in the West Bank.

Hundreds of supporters are joining the town's residents, ready to take part in what they believe to be a holy war.

"As long as we're needed we'll stay. We'll quit our jobs, we won't go to school," Amos Azaria told CTV News.

The settlers are moving into old U.S. army tents and rundown trailers, preparing for when the month-long pullout begins Aug. 15.

There are 21 Gaza settlements and four isolated West Bank settlements that about 40,000 police and soldiers will evacuate – Israel's largest ever peacetime operation.

Israeli forces are concerned that 10,000 supporters could join the 600 already estimated to be camping in Sanur, creating further tensions. Security forces have practiced the withdrawal using the American tactic of playing heavy rock music, which they hope will drown out chanting.

The town was originally a colony for Russian artists, and was founded in 1987.

One of those artists, Julia Sega, remembers another evacuation. During the Second World War, when her family fled Ukraine from the Nazis.

Sega is angry that she will be forced from her home once again, in what she views as an unnecessary and pointless operation.

"No one is sure that this will succeed. How many times can they make the same mistake?" she told CTV News.

Sanur residents have so far only shown passive resistance. They managed to stall the construction of an army service road by standing with babies in front of bulldozers. And they routinely tell soldiers they should be ashamed for going against their own people.

But Sanur is also home to radical idealogues who see the town's settlement as their birthright. The settlement is in the Dotan Valley, where the bible states that Joseph was sold into slavery thousands of years ago.

The settlers have transformed an old mosque into a synagogue, with an antagonistic sign posted outside that reads in Hebrew: "No dogs. No Arabs."

While some settlers in the Gaza strip have handed in weapons prior to the withdrawal, there has been no such agreement in Sanur, which concerns security forces.

Although there is a religious law forbidding the firing on fellow Jews, so only non-Jewish troops may be targeted, the military is worried that some settlers are getting hand-to-hand combat training, to physically assault troops.

Palestinians urged to remain calm

Meanwhile, Palestinians have been asked to wait patiently for the Gaza pullout to conclude.

"There is a requirement to ensure the withdrawal take place in a civilized manner,'' Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told The Associated Press. "We will be able to show the world we deserve independence and freedom.''

Abbas warned Palestinians not to engage in looting after the withdrawal. He also asked them not to celebrate too openly, because the government seeks full independence in Gaza and sees Israel's withdrawal as only a minor victory.

"The Israelis are still occupying our land. The road is still long ahead,'' Abbas said.

Analysts say the greatest challenge awaiting Abbas is getting Hamas and other militants to obey the current ceasefire with Israel. Attacks have continued despite the upcoming pullout, some even injuring Palestinians.

With a report from Janis Mackey Frayer