Tentative truce in Gaza as Israeli troops withdraw

A tentative truce held in Gaza as Israeli troops undertook a gradual withdrawal from some key areas of the Strip in an effort to pull out completely before Barack Obama's inauguration on Tuesday as the new US president.
 
Israeli troops and armour began the withdrawal process on Sunday after their deadly 22-day onslaught. The guns fell silent around Gaza after Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire and the Islamist Hamas movement and other militant groups called a week-long truce of their own.
 
However, Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni warned on Monday that if Hamas renews cross-border rocket fire, Tel Aviv will launch another offensive against the Islamist group in Gaza.
 
"If Hamas fires a Qassam [rocket] at Israel, it will get slapped down again, as it got it now and they know this," said Livni.
 
Prime minister Ehud Olmert said that Israel does not intend to keep a military presence inside the Gaza Strip, nor does it aim to reconquer the territory, despite its three-week offensive on the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave.
 
According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, Israeli officials said that troops would withdraw completely before Obama's inauguration.
 
Olmert told European leaders visiting Jerusalem yesterday that in the wake of the cease-fire, Israel planned to withdraw all of its troops as soon as possible. He said that such a move would come when the situation between Israel and Gaza was "stable."
 
"We didn't set out to conquer Gaza, we didn't set out to control Gaza, we don't want to remain in Gaza and we intend on leaving Gaza as fast as possible", Olmert said at a dinner with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic.

Meanwhile, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, whose faction controls the Strip, said the Palestinians had achieved a strategic victory over Israel, and claimed that the Israeli operation had failed.
 
"The enemy has failed to achieve its goals," Haniyeh said, adding Hamas's truce decision was conditioned on Israel withdrawing within a week.
 
According to the Palestinian Statistics Bureau, some 4,000 residential buildings were reduced to rubble during the conflict. Western diplomats have said it could cost at least USD 1.6 billion to repair the infrastructure damage in Gaza.
 
Meanwhile, Israel would allow 200 trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, Israel Radio reported.  

According to Haaretz daily, the three-week offensive has strengthened the prospects of foreign minister Livni and defense minister Ehud Barak ahead of the February 10 general election.
 
However, an opinion polls still predict an easy win for right-wing opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who had opposed Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza after 38 years, arguing that it would embolden hardline Palestinian Islamists, the report said.
 
While Israel has reported that at least 500 of the 1,300 Palestinians killed in Gaza were Islamist militants, Hamas claimed that only several dozens of its fighters were killed in the offensive.
 
Israel launched its air, ground and sea assault on December 27 vowing to "change the reality" in the Hamas-controled Gaza. The deadliest Israeli offensive ever launched on enclave killed over 1,300 people, more than half of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials. Thirteen Israelis died, including four soldiers were also killed.