Israel withdraws most troops from Gaza
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Israel withdrew most of its ground troops
from the Gaza Strip on Sunday in an apparent winding down of the nearly
monthlong operation against Hamas that has left more than 1,800
Palestinians and 60 Israelis dead.
Even as Israel said it was close to completing its mission, heavy
fighting raged in parts of Gaza, with at least 10 Palestinians killed in
an alleged Israeli airstrike near a U.N. shelter, according to U.N. and
Palestinian officials. The U.S. and the United Nations condemned the
attack in unusually strong terms.
And with Hamas officials vowing to continue their fight, it remained uncertain whether Israel could unilaterally end the war.
Israel launched its military operation in Gaza on July 8 in response
to weeks of heavy rocket fire, carrying out hundreds of airstrikes
across the crowded seaside territory. It then sent in ground forces July
17 in what it said was a mission to destroy the tunnels used by Hamas
to carry out attacks.
Hamas has fired more than 3,000 rockets into Israel during what has
turned into the bloodiest round of fighting ever between the two
enemies.
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, confirmed the
bulk of ground troops had been pulled out of Gaza after the military
concluded it had destroyed most of the tunnel network.
He said Israel had detected some 30 tunnels that were dug along the border for what he called a "synchronized attack" on Israel.
"We've caused substantial damage to this network to an extent where
we've basically taken this huge threat and made it minimal," he said.
The army had thousands of troops in Gaza at the height of the operation.
In southern Israel, armored vehicles could be seen rolling slowly
onto the back of large flatbed trucks near the Gaza border, while
soldiers folded flags from atop a tank and rolled up their belongings
and sleeping bags.
Lerner said, however, that the operation was not over and that Israel
would continue to target Hamas' rocket-firing capabilities and its
ability to infiltrate Israel.
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press on
against Hamas, he is coming under international pressure to halt the
fighting because of the heavy civilian death toll.
U.N. officials say more than three-quarters of the dead have been
civilians, including the 10 people killed Sunday at a U.N. school that
has been converted into a shelter in the southern town of Rafah.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the attack a "moral outrage
and a criminal act" and demanded a quick investigation, while the U.S.
State Department said Washington was "appalled" by the "disgraceful"
attack.
According to witnesses, Israeli strikes hit just outside the main
gates of the school. The Red Crescent, a charity, said the attack
occurred while people were in line to get food from aid workers. Gaza
health official Ashraf al-Kidra said in addition to the dead, 35 people
were wounded.
Robert Turner, director of operations for the U.N. Palestinian
refugee agency in Gaza, said the building had been providing shelter for
some 3,000 people. He said the strike killed at least one U.N. staffer.
"The locations of all these installations have been passed to the
Israeli military multiple times," Turner said. "They know where these
shelters are. How this continues to happen, I have no idea."
Inside the U.N. school's compound, several bodies, among them
children, were strewn across the ground in puddles of blood. "Our trust
and our fate are only in the hands of God!" one woman cried.
The Israeli military said it had targeted three wanted militants on a
motorcycle in the vicinity and was "reviewing the consequences of this
strike."
In the current round of fighting, U.N. shelters have been struck by
fire seven times. UNRWA, the U.N. agency that assists Palestinian
refugees, says Israel has been the source of fire in all instances. But
it also has said it found caches of rockets in vacant UNRWA schools
three times.
Israel accuses Hamas of using civilian areas for cover and says the
Islamic militant group is responsible for the heavy death toll because
it has been using civilians as "human shields."
Israeli artillery shells slammed into two high-rise office buildings
Sunday in downtown Gaza City, police and witnesses said. Al-Kidra said
more than 50 Palestinians were killed, including 10 members of one
family in a single strike in the southern Gaza Strip.
Israel said that it attacked 63 sites on Sunday and that nearly 100 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel.
Israeli officials said the military would reduce its ground
activities in Gaza but would respond to continued attacks from Gaza with
airstrikes.
"It's not a withdrawal," said Israeli Cabinet minister Amir Peretz
told Channel 10 TV. "It's setting up a new line that is a more
controlled line with the air force doing its work."
In Gaza, Hamas officials said they would not halt the rocket fire
without an end to an Israeli blockade of the territory that has
devastated the local economy. Israel imposed the blockade in 2007,
saying the measures are needed to keep Hamas from arming.
"If Israel stops unilaterally, Hamas will declare victory and will
not grant any security or truce to Israel," said one senior official,
who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing internal
Hamas deliberations. "In this case, we are going to live under a war of
attrition until a political solution is found."
In Cairo, Egyptian and Palestinian negotiators held talks over a
potential cease-fire. After accusing Hamas of repeatedly violating
humanitarian cease-fire arrangements, Israel said it would not attend
the talks and there was "no point" in negotiating with the militant
group.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military death toll rose to 64 after Israel
announced that Hadar Goldin, a 23-year-old infantry lieutenant feared
captured in Gaza, was actually killed in battle. Some 15,000 people
attended his funeral Sunday.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon revealed on his Facebook page
Sunday that he is a distant relative of Goldin and had known him his
whole life. The information was previously kept under wraps while Goldin
was feared abducted.
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