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Hamas seeks to restore order in Gaza

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-20 08:34

Israeli officials said they hoped to pull all troops out of the Gaza Strip by the time Barack Obama was inaugurated as U.S. president Tuesday. The withdrawal would avoid subjecting Obama to a vexing Mideast problem on his first day in office, and also give Israeli politicians time to prepare for elections next month.

Palestinians salvage belongings from the ruins of a destroyed house on the outskirts of Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip January 19, 2009. More Israeli forces left the Gaza Strip on Monday after a 22-day assault on Hamas militants, and both sides kept a ceasefire, allowing dazed Palestinians to survey the destruction and mourn their dead. [Agencies]

But Tuesday's deadline would not be met if militants resumed fire, government officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss troop movements.

"We reserve the right to act in Gaza," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Israeli television. "If they lift up their heads and shoot, we will return with great force because that is what you do against terror organizations."

Israel hopes its Gaza offensive will serve as a long-term deterrent to further militant rocket attacks on its territory. But the Jewish state ended the war without achieving guarantees that Hamas will halt missile fire or stop smuggling weapons into Gaza.

Hamas' demand that Israel open Gaza's blockaded border crossings also was not met.

Israel and Egypt virtually sealed the crossings after Hamas staged a violent takeover of the strip in 2007, a closure that deepened poverty there and trapped its residents. The Israeli army has allowed humanitarian supplies in, and Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog said Israel would cooperate in "helping and easing up the pressure of the people of Gaza."

With aid groups calling for an expanded flow of shipments, Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor indicated that goods and equipment transported across the border from Israel must be closely scrutinized.

"One needs to make sure that nothing that can be used as weapon will reach Hamas and that is clearly in the interest of all parties," he said.

Hamas' interior minister, Said Siam, was among those killed in the war. But a spokesman for the ministry, Ihab Ghussein, said that Hamas remained in firm control of Gaza and that civil servants were surveying the damage.

"We are working despite damage done to communication, to our vehicles and the destruction of our compounds. We are on the ground and our people can feel that," Ghussein said.

Palestinian surveyors estimate the war caused at least $1.4 billion worth of destruction to buildings, roads and power lines.

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