Israeli police and soldiers forcibly removed two dozen illegal settlers and hundreds of their supporters yesterday from the centre of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank.

The settlers threw stones, water, oil and cement powder as they tried to resist being carried out one by one. Thirty people were hurt, with one settler and six policemen needing hospital treatment after the three-hour confrontation.

More than 400,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but the few hundred who live in Hebron have proved the most hardline. The two settler families evicted yesterday had moved into a two-storey building in the city centre's long-closed market area last autumn but ignored a supreme court order to leave. Hundreds of supporters joined them in recent days, ahead of yesterday's operation. Under international law, all settlers on occupied land are there illegally.

Settlers routinely protest violently against any attempt to remove them in an effort to discourage the Israeli government from the large-scale withdrawals that would inevitably accompany a final peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Yariv Oppenheimer, a leader of the Peace Now group, which campaigns against the settlements, said: "The next time the government will think twice about evacuating people."

The Hebron settlers say they are trying to rebuild the Jewish community that lived there before Israel's creation in 1948. "This is a crime against justice and against Jewish history," Noam Arnon, a spokesman for the city's settlers, told AP yesterday. "I am sure we will return. Hebron has a long history and we will return."

About 500 settlers live among 180,000 Palestinians in Hebron, once the commercial centre of the southern West Bank. Now the city centre is closed to Palestinians, who are routinely harassed by the settlers. In May, two Israeli human rights groups said Israel had "severely oppressed" Palestinians in Hebron for several years under a "principle of separation".

Ten Israeli soldiers and two officers were disciplined this week for refusing to take part in the operation. The army said the troops, who are religious, would face trial and be removed from combat duty.

The operation in Hebron came a day after talks in Jericho between the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Mr Abbas said yesterday there would soon be improvements for Palestinians. "Many of the daily issues that concern the Palestinian people will find a solution," he said.

A report in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz said the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, had proposed a new peace plan to give Palestinians land equivalent to 100% of the occupied territories. Israel would keep settlements on 5% of the West Bank but would exchange an equal amount of land. However, Mr Olmert's office denied the plan had been raised.