In June of 1967, with its neighbors Syria and Egypt poised to attack, Israel launched a secretive preemptive attack on the two countries. When Jordan entered in the skirmish, Israel turned its might against its eastern neighbor.

When the dust settled after this Six Day War, Israel had doubled in size, controlling the Golan Heights in the North, Gaza and Sinai to the West, and the West Bank and a unified Jerusalem to the East.

After Israel's near-defeat in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the country began to show a willingness to trade land conquered in the 1967 war for peace -- at the same time as creating new cities on the conquered land.

By the early 1980s, the entire Sinai Peninsula -- with Israel's only domestic source of oil -- had been given back in full to Egypt in return for peace. The later peace with Jordan rested on similar laurels. And now, despite cynics claims that it would never happen, the AP's Ravi Nessman reports that Israel has evacuated the Gaza Strip in full.

Israeli soldiers cleared two militant strongholds Tuesday without major violence, completing the country's historic evacuation of 25 settlements in the Gaza Strip and West Bank — the first time Israel has abandoned Jewish communities in lands the Palestinians claim for their future state.

About 6,000 troops — armed with riot gear, circular saws, water hoses and wirecutters — were mobilized to overwhelm the last stand against the pullout in the West Bank settlements of Sanur and Homesh. The resistance was staged largely by 1,600 Israelis who didn't even live there — some of them youths known for their extremism and rejection of the Israeli government's authority.

But security officials' fears of armed violence didn't materialize, and the military declared the evacuation of the two settlements over just nine hours after troops stormed them.

Residents of the other two West Bank settlements slated for removal, Ganim and Kadim, had already left on their own. Military bulldozers Tuesday knocked down all the structures in Kadim, and were razing buildings in Ganim — the first demolitions in a West Bank settlement.

Israel is destroying the homes to prevent Jewish extremists from returning there. The military fears that if left standing, these settlements could also become flashpoints of violence between settlers and Palestinians living in the area.

Cautious optimism.