A bailiff walks with an injunction notice at the main protest site in Hong Kong. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP/Getty Images)

Hong Kong police said Tuesday that they would clear the city’s main pro-democracy camp later this week, setting up a possible final showdown with protesters after a court order authorized the sweeps.

The operation, set to begin Thursday, reflects the waning support for demonstrators after more than two months of civil disobedience and clashes over Beijing’s role in directing elections in the former British colony.

Sympathy for the student-led protests was high at the outset, especially after police used tear gas against activists. But the prolonged occupation and the more confrontational tactics of the radical fringe, whose members tried to break into government offices, eroded that support.

Authorities will begin clearing the main site, in Hong Kong’s Admiralty district, at 9 a.m. Thursday, according to an attorney for a bus company that brought the court action.

Although the court order does not cover the entire protest site, police said they would take the opportunity to clear all the occupied areas.

An elderly man walks past the protesters' tents and barricades. (Kin Cheung/AP)

“After we assist the bailiffs clearing the areas in the injunction, we will clear the rest of the occupied areas according to the law,” the assistant police commissioner, Cheung Tak-keung, said at a news conference. He told protesters to pack their belongings soon and warned that police would arrest anyone obstructing the operation.

“Police will not take actions if protesters stick to their original principles of peace and nonviolence, but we have seen violence being used,” he said. “Protesters should not step up their actions or police will have to use more force.”

Numbers at the protests have dwindled sharply in recent weeks, and morale appears to be flagging. Some activists have begun packing their tents and removing artwork from the site in anticipation of the final clear-out.

Hundreds of people thronged the site late Tuesday to capture what could be the last photos of the protest. The movement represents the most serious challenge to China’s control of Hong Kong since the territory’s handover in 1997.

Police shut down a protest site in another Hong Kong district, Mong Kok, late last month after a separate court order, making about 160 arrests in several nights of clashes with demonstrators.

Activists at a much smaller site in Causeway Bay may leave of their own accord this week, one of them told Bloomberg News.

Hong Kong’s chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, said officers would use “minimum force” while clearing the streets this week, but he has also warned that they could face “fierce resistance.”

The protest movement began in late September as a nonviolent civil disobedience campaign for full democracy and free elections to choose Leung’s successor in 2017. Beijing demands the right to screen candidates.

As public support for the movement has fallen off, police also have become less popular for their handling of the protests, according to an opinion poll released Tuesday.

The poll, conducted by the University of Hong Kong late last month, showed police popularity hitting its lowest level since 1997.

In recent days, students tried to breathe new life into the protest movement by attempting to surround government buildings and, when that led to more clashes with police, by staging a hunger strike.

However, the most prominent hunger-striker, 18-year-old student leader Joshua Wong, abandoned the effort this weekend on doctor’s orders after nearly five days.

Benny Tai, the law professor who came up with the idea to occupy streets, said it was now time to end that phase of the pro-democracy movement.

“Continuing the occupation is high risk with low return,” he wrote Tuesday in the Apple Daily newspaper.

But experts say the movement will not end once Hong Kong’s streets are cleared. With young people increasingly politicized and alienated from Beijing’s Communist Party government — and support for democratic reforms still high — more protests are likely in coming years, many say.

“If we look at it from winning over Hong Kong’s people, it has already achieved a lot, even more than what was expected,” Tai said.