GAZA (Reuters)
Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip on Monday after days of fighting that killed more than 100 people and drew an appeal from Washington to end violence and rescue peace talks with the Palestinians.
The Hamas Islamists who control the coastal enclave declared "victory" and vowed to continue firing rockets into Israel. But the Israeli government declared it had achieved its objective of deterring attacks, which have disrupted life in border towns.
At dawn, as Gaza residents streamed out of homes where they had been pinned for days by the heavy fighting, a spokesman for the Hamas armed wing said it would continue firing rockets into Israel and adding that "The enemy has been defeated."
On the eve of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Israel had been under pressure from its ally in Washington to halt the violence after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended U.S.-backed peace talks in protest at the bloodshed.
It carried out several air strikes overnight, killing a further three militants, medics and Hamas said. The army said it had targeted workshops involved in making rockets.
An Israeli government spokesman said after the troops pulled back on the ground: "We will continue with our defensive actions against those who fire lethal rockets at our civilians."
Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon, deputy to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Army Radio: "This operation has run its course. “The main goal of the Israeli government ... is to end the firing at targets in the south. There were dozens of deaths among the Hamas terrorists -- this is certainly deterrence." |
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Death Toll Hamas officials said they found four bodies in northern areas of the Gaza Strip following the Israeli withdrawal, taking the Palestinian death toll since Wednesday to 112.
Medics and Hamas have said about half of those have been civilians, including women and children.
The United Nations condemned Israel for using "excessive force" and Abbas, whose Western-backed forces lost control of Gaza to Hamas in June, said he would not resume talks with Olmert until it ended.
Rice is due to arrive on Tuesday for scheduled, separate meetings with Abbas and Olmert. "We're encouraging Israel to exercise caution to avoid the loss of innocent life," a U.S. State Department spokesman after Rice spoke to Abbas on Sunday.
U.S. President George W. Bush, among Israel's staunchest allies during his presidency, has pledged to try and forge a deal on Palestinian statehood before he steps down in January.
His spokesman had said on Sunday: "The violence needs to stop and the talks need to resume."
On Saturday, 61 people including 30 civilians were killed in the bloodiest day for Palestinians since their 1980s uprising.
Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting and on Wednesday an Israeli civilian was killed by a rocket, the first such death since May.
Hamas says it fires rockets in self-defense and that it would stop if Israel halted all military activity in Gaza and the occupied West Bank and ended its embargo on the Gaza Strip. |
