Palestinian militant group Hamas has said Israel's evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip was a first step toward the liberation of all occupied land through armed struggle.
Hamas's top official Khaled Meshaal said the Islamist group would not give up its weapons while Israel continued to occupy Palestinian land.
"Gaza is the first liberation, then comes the West Bank, then every inch of Palestinian land," Mr Meshaal told reporters in Beirut. "We are at the beginning of the road and we have not and will not give up our weapons. The battle is not over."
Israeli troops began a forced evacuation today of thousands of settlers enraged by their expulsion from the Gaza Strip after Israel's 38-year occupation.
The move is the culmination of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for the first removal of settlements from Palestinian land .
Palestinian militants claim the withdrawal as victory and Israeli opponents decry it as a surrender to violence. Washington hopes it will prove a catalyst for renewed peacemaking.
Speaking in front of a poster reading "Today Gaza, Tomorrow Jerusalem", Mr Meshaal said the evacuation is proof the Palestinians can only win their land and rights by force, not through talks.
He hailed the move a precedent that marked a reversal of fortunes for Palestinians waging a nearly five-year uprising and the eventual end of Israel's occupation of land it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
"This is the first real Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territory and the beginning of the dismantling of the Zionist settlement project," he said, speaking amid tight security in the stronghold of Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrilla group.
Israel says the evacuation will end its occupation of Gaza, but Palestinians say that can only happen once they gain full control of borders and airspace.
Mr Meshaal said Hamas reserved the right to attack should Israel keep control of Gaza border crossings, as Hizbollah has continued to hit Israeli troops in a disputed border area since Israel ended its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in 2000.
But he did not restae Hamas's historic goal of creating an Islamic state that would encompass not only the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but what is now Israel.
Israel plans to pull out the last troops from Gaza in October, turning the land over to the Palestinian Authority.