Gaza rockets hit Israel despite unilateral truce
GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired rockets into southern Israel on Sunday in defiance of the unilateral cease-fire that Israel declared hours earlier.
After 22 days of fierce assaults in the Gaza Strip, Israel appeared to be back at the starting point -- threatening military action unless cross-border rocket salvoes stopped.
Palestinians rushed to remove bodies from rubble and survey damage to homes damaged or destroyed in Israel's most powerful offensive in the Gaza Strip in decades.
"Thank God, you are alive," one man told a neighbour after returning to the northern Gazan town of Beit Lahiya. "The house can be rebuilt, God willing."
Leaders from Britain, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy and Turkey and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon were to meet in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh within hours to coordinate policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Egypt said the summit would try to help it turn the cease-fire Israel declared into a mutual agreement leading to Israeli withdrawal from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
The deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians and mounting destruction and hardship in the territory brought strong international pressure on Israel to stop the offensive.
Israel's unilateral truce went into effect at 12:00 a.m. British time. Within hours, five rockets were fired at the Israeli town of Sderot, causing no casualties, an Israeli military spokesman said.
NO SURPRISE
The attacks came as no surprise: the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, said it would not accept the presence of Israeli forces and would "continue to resist them." Israel said full withdrawal was contingent on Hamas ceasing fire.
Israeli aircraft staged what appeared to be a limited response, attacking the site where the rockets were launched. Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees claimed responsibility for the salvoes.
Several hours later, another rocket slammed into Israel, in an attack claimed by Hamas's armed wing. No casualties were reported in the rocket attacks or the air strike.
But in the first reported fatality since the cease-fire began, a Palestinian was killed by Israeli forces near the town of Khan Younis after mortar bombs were fired from the area, medical workers said. They identified him as a civilian.
During the offensive, Israeli attacks killed more than 1,300 Palestinians, including some 700 civilians, Gaza medical officials said. Israel said hundreds of gunmen were among the dead. Ten Israeli soldiers were killed as well as three Israeli civilians hit by rockets.
"If the cease-fire holds, we can start a process of moving out," said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
In an address late on Saturday, Olmert said the Israeli operation, launched on December 27 with the declared aim of ending cross-border rocket attacks that had killed 18 people in Israel over the previous eight years, had achieved all its objectives.
Olmert cited internationally backed understandings with Egypt, Gaza's southern neighbour, on preventing Hamas from rearming through smuggling tunnels as a reason behind Israel's decision to call off its attacks.
Left unsettled was an issue at the heart of the conflict -- Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. Hamas, though hit hard by the air and ground campaign, remains the de facto force within the coastal enclave.
Without an accord with Hamas, diplomats said they feared Israel would let only a trickle of goods into Gaza, hampering reconstruction and creating more hardship for its people.
Olmert, speaking about Sunday's rocket attacks, told his cabinet that Israel was reassessing the cease-fire constantly and troops were "prepared to act in any area" if "violations such as those that occurred this morning continue."
Hamas official Mushir al-Masri said Israel had failed to curtail his group's rocket attacks, and that they were "still reaching deep into the Zionist entity."
RESIDENTS RETURN
Hours after the cease-fire began, Israeli soldiers moved out of Beit Lahiya, an area militants have used as a launching ground for cross-border rocket strikes.
Palestinian ambulances picked up more than 95 bodies, most of them gunmen, that had lain in the rubble of buildings and open areas in and around Beit Lahiya, Hamas police and health officials said.
Residents who had left during the fighting returned to survey what remained of their homes. Children picked through the debris to uncover school bags and torn books.
A column of Israeli tanks and soldiers, some holding Israeli flags, withdrew from the Gaza Strip for what the army called "rest and relaxation."
But several of the tanks established a position 100 metres (yards) inside Gaza while others remained deployed on the eastern edge of the city of Gaza.
Israeli forces reopened the main north-south Gaza road, which they had closed during the conflict, but witnesses said tanks were still stationed along the route.
(Additional reporting by Adam Entous and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem and Alaa Shahine in Cairo, Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Editing by Kevin Liffey)