Israel Withdraws Last of Its Troops From Gaza Strip

[Mrs. Sharon B. Hodge]

Israel Withdraws Last of Its Troops From Gaza Strip
by David Rosenbery and Louis Meixler


Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Israel withdrew the last of its soldiers from the Gaza Strip, three days after declaring a unilateral cease-fire, and warned that it was prepared to react if militants resumed firing rockets at southern cities.

“Obviously, we will maintain a high state of alert,” said Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said today in a telephone interview. “If Hamas acts to undermine the cease-fire, we are ready.”

The Israeli troops moved to positions on their side of the border with Gaza. Israel began pulling out its soldiers on Jan. 18, ending a 22-day offensive that Gaza hospital officials said left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead. The Islamic Hamas movement declared a cease-fire shortly afterward. Israel began the withdrawal after Egypt, the U.S. and European countries agreed to help crack down on arms smuggling to Gaza.

Palestinian militants fired 12 mortar shells yesterday, several of which landed within Gaza while a few struck open fields on the Israeli side of the border, said Israel’s army spokeswoman, Major Avital Leibovitz. Israel said its military operation in Gaza was aimed at ending rocket attacks on its southern cities and towns.

Word of the Hamas cease-fire “might not have reached all the operatives and some independent organizations,” Leibovitz said. “We are taking a few days to carefully assess the situation.”

Hamas has called for an end to Israel’s economic blockade of Gaza, which was imposed after the movement won Palestinian elections three years ago and has been gradually tightened.

800 Rockets

At least 4,000 homes in Gaza were destroyed during the fighting, Palestinian officials said. Israeli police said more than 800 rockets and mortar shells were fired by Palestinians during the conflict. Four Israelis were killed by rockets and nine soldiers died in combat.

The number of rockets fired into Israel fell to about 20 a day by the time the cease-fire began, from more than 70 on the first day of the war.

Israel’s benchmark TA-25 Index of stocks gained 5.4 percent during the Gaza conflict, and was down 2.1 percent at 1:26 p.m. today. The shekel strengthened 0.9 percent against the dollar during the fighting and weakened 0.6 percent today.

The conflict caused $1.9 billion in damage and lost output in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said on its Web site, citing preliminary figures. The war probably cost Israel 6 billion shekels ($1.5 billion), said Yoram Gabai, chairman of the Pe’ilim fund-management unit of Bank Hapoalim and a former Israeli Finance Ministry official.

Weapons Tunnels

Hamas is believed to still have several hundred rockets, Leibovitz said, adding that Israel destroyed 80 percent of the 300 tunnels that the group used to smuggle weapons into the area from Egypt.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the Gaza Strip yesterday and said he saw “heartbreaking scenes” of devastation. Witnesses said several areas looked like they were hit by an earthquake, with houses, mosques and other buildings reduced to rubble.

Aid groups have warned of a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, where about 1.5 million people live in an area of 360 square kilometers (144 square miles).

The UN will send a task force to help in reconstruction, Ban told reporters at the local headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency. He also called for an investigation into an incident in which the UNRWA compound in Gaza City was damaged by Israeli shelling, and criticized Israel for using “excessive force.”

‘Remorse and Pain’

Olmert visited soldiers on an army base in southern Israel yesterday, and defended their actions.

“Those who build defensive systems among their civilian populations -- and place civilian populations where they can be hit in order to create international pressure -- this is immoral,” Olmert said, according to an e-mailed statement. “This is not to say that we do not feel remorse and pain over those who were hit even though they were not involved.”

Ban later visited the Israeli town of Sderot near the Gaza border, which has been attacked by rockets during the past eight years.

“No human being can live for long in a state of fear in such a way as this,” he said. “The rockets are appalling to me.”

Campaigning for Israel’s Feb. 10 national elections resumed with the end of fighting. An opinion poll published Jan. 19 in the Haaretz newspaper showed former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party retaining its lead.

National Elections

Likud has enough support to win 29 seats in the 120-member Knesset compared with 26 for Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s Kadima Party, which won the 2006 election, according to the poll. Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s Labor Party would win 14 seats. The survey of 500 eligible voters had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

Hamas, considered a terrorist group by the U.S., Israel and the European Union, refuses to recognize Israel or any peace agreements with the Jewish state. The group took full control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, ending its partnership government with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who leads Fatah. In January 2006, Hamas won parliamentary elections, defeating Fatah.

To contact the reporters on this story: David Rosenberg in Jerusalem at [e-mail]; Louis Meixler in Jerusalem at [e-mail].