INSIDE GAZA:ISRAEL hopes that most of its troops will be out of Gaza today, in time for the inauguration of Barack Obama as US president.
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit the coastal enclave today, and will be the first world figure to go to Gaza since Israel halted its offensive. Mr Ban will also visit southern Israel, officials said.
In Gaza’s biggest city yesterday, streets filled with people and cars as residents began picking up the pieces of the lives they led before Israel’s three-week air and ground onslaught.
Destruction in some areas of Gaza City was so widespread that streets resembled a moonscape. Damage elsewhere appeared pinpointed, with isolated homes flattened or demolished. Shattered glass and mounds of rubble littered city streets. Donkey carts hauled produce and firewood through streets littered with debris.
A swift withdrawal of Israeli troops would reduce the likelihood of clashes with militants that could rupture the truce.
By getting its soldiers out before the Obama inauguration, Israel would spare the new administration the difficulty of having to deal with the problem from day one. Mr Obama has said Middle East peace will be a priority for his administration.
Thousands of Israeli troops have left Gaza, but large contingents of soldiers have been kept close to the border on the Israeli side, prepared to re-enter if violence reignites.
No violations of the truce have been reported since Hamas ceased fire on Sunday, but the quiet remains tenuous because neither side achieved long-term goals.
Hamas said yesterday that 48 of its fighters died, its first statement on losses suffered during the offensive. The number is far below the hundreds of militants Israel claims it killed.
Palestinian surveyors estimate the war destroyed around £1 billion (€1.1 billion) worth of buildings, roads, power lines and pipes in the already impoverished territory. Arab and western countries will be expected to foot most of the bill. But the delivery of western aid will be complicated because western powers class Hamas as a terrorist organisation and refuse to deal with it. – (AP)