Amona, West Bank ? Israeli police on horseback charged the lines, swinging clubs. Rioters hit back with a volley of rocks. One young man whacked a horse’s flank with a two-by-four.

The fierce battle between security forces and protesters at this illegal Jewish settlement outpost in the heart of the West Bank was reminiscent of Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last summer.

But Wednesday’s clashes also were seen as a test for Israel’s new acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who has said he would move with determination against settlers violating the law.

“The behavior of the settlers cannot be tolerated,” Olmert said. “Today they crossed every line.”

Protesters fought back with sticks, stones, bricks and paint as riot police wielding clubs and water cannons dragged hundreds of them from rooftops barricaded in barbed wire and flattened empty, uninhabited homes with bulldozers and heavy machinery.

Israel’s rescue service said 219 people were injured, including 10 people in moderate to serious condition.

Jewish settlers and their supporters clash with Israeli troops and police as authorities evacuate the West Bank settlement outpost of Amona. Thousands of troops in riot gear and on horseback clashed with hundreds of stone-throwing Jewish settlers holed up behind barbed wire and on rooftops Wednesday.

Among the wounded were more than 50 police officers, one with serious head wounds, and two ultranationalist lawmakers who supported the protesters.

The military said 32 people were arrested at the scene along with “dozens of other rioters” in the area.

The fight was a likely harbinger of what lies ahead if Israel decides to leave other parts of the West Bank. Olmert, the front-runner in the March 28 Israeli elections, is widely expected to withdraw from more areas of the territory and dismantle additional Jewish settlements if he wins.

The confrontation at Amona began Wednesday morning after Israel’s Supreme Court ordered nine uninhabited houses recently built on private Palestinian land to be demolished. The remainder of the outpost – including a synagogue, playground and cramped trailer homes inhabited by about 35 families – was not affected.