The barrier and the Gaza withdrawal are hallmarks of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "disengagement" plan, which he said is meant to reduce friction between Israel and the Palestinians.
Sharon hopes to carry out the Gaza pullout next year, but it has sparked an internal uprising by hard-liners within his Likud party.
The resistance has raised questions over whether Sharon can carry out the withdrawal without his government collapsing. Hard-line opposition has already cost Sharon his parliamentary majority, leaving him somewhat vulnerable to no-confidence votes.
Sharon insists he is going ahead, and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, speaking after a visit to an army base in northern Israel, said yesterday that planning for the pullout was progressing.
"The main points of the policy have already been decided," he said. "We plan to complete our plans in September."
Sharon has said Israel will uproot all 21 settlements in Gaza as well as four isolated enclaves in the West Bank. About 8,000 Jewish settlers live in Gaza among 1.3 million Palestinians.
Mofaz said the military's preparations include the possibility of resistance from the settlers. "I hope we will not see extreme steps against Israeli soldiers and Israeli police," he said.
Settler representatives have harshly criticized the plan. Eran Sternberg, a spokesman for the Gaza settlers, accused the army of sending in soldiers to the Neve Dekalim settlement yesterday to prepare for the pullout.
"The soldiers wandered around the homes and recorded different facts," Sternberg said, claiming they even counted the numbers of flower pots in individual homes.
The army said the soldiers were conducting a routine exercise unrelated to the withdrawal.
Attorney General Meni Mazuz recommended the government seriously consider adopting the Fourth Geneva Convention, a set of international legal guidelines governing the treatment of occupied peoples, a statement from his office said.
