JERUSALEM — Israel's top security chiefs are looking to tighten the already shortened Gaza Strip evacuation timetable, defence and government officials said Monday.

Nearly half of all Jewish settler families, meanwhile, have sought compensation for the withdrawal that many have vowed to resist, government officials said.

On Aug. 15, Israel is to begin its forcible evacuation of Jewish settlers and their supporters who refuse to leave the Gaza Strip and four small northern West Bank settlements.

Security officials have allotted four weeks for removing resistant settlers -- down from an original 12 -- and at least an additional four weeks for demolishing homes and dismantling military bases.

But Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, the Gaza commander, told parliament's Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee in a closed-door session Monday that the military is prepared to evacuate the settlers within three weeks, Israel Radio said. That would assume relatively minor resistance. Harel refused to speak to reporters after the meeting.

Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz and other security officials urged Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday to complete the evacuation without pausing to assess it at various stages, a right the Cabinet assumed several months ago, security and government officials said.

Sharon's point man on evacuation, Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, backed the request for an uninterrupted withdrawal, saying Cabinet could review the evacuation process without holding it up.

"There is no logic for a pause after each phase,'' Olmert told Israel Radio. "Any such pause, any such suspension would lay the groundwork for unwanted clashes, would only create additional hardships, would only stretch out the internal conflict for no reason.''

The evacuation could be interrupted by Palestinian militants firing on settlers and troops to create the impression that Israel is retreating from Gaza under fire. Harel said Israel would first send in ground forces, then use air strikes if necessary, to stop the fire, Israel Radio reported.

Mofaz has said 41,000 soldiers and 4,000 police would be assigned to the pullout. On Monday, Israel launched its biggest drill for evacuation forces, an exercise involving more than 12,000 soldiers and police who will undergo evacuation simulations and sensitivity training.

The Yediot Ahronot newspaper cited military chief Lt. Gen Dan Halutz as estimating that more than 70 per cent of the settlers who are to be uprooted will leave voluntarily. Some 8,500 settlers live in Gaza, and the military estimated Monday that they have been reinforced by 2,000 pullout opponents who have moved to the coastal strip to join the resistance.

While vowing resistance, many settlers appeared to have resigned themselves to evacuation, seeking government compensation for their removal in increasing numbers. The government agency overseeing civilian aspects of the withdrawal said Monday that some 40 per cent of the 1,480 Gaza settler families and 85 per cent of the 200 families to be uprooted from the northern West Bank have filed for the cash payments.

One of the most emotionally charged issues the government faces in its evacuation of Gaza is the planned relocation of the 48 graves in the cemetery in the Neve Dekalim settlement.

The military's top rabbi, Brig. Gen. Yisrael Weiss, visited Neve Dekalim on Monday to discuss the removal of the graves.

Dozens of heckling settlers closed in on Weiss at the end of the visit, threw empty garbage bags at him, and told him to collect the bones of the dead in them. They then emptied garbage dumpsters over his departing vehicle, and shouted, "Jews don't evacuate Jewish graves.''