Israel Ends Gaza Siege, Killing Continues
Israeli ground troops pulled out of northern Gaza before daybreak Monday, following the first extended sweep in an offensive against Palestinian rocket squads that has left more than 100 dead and led the Palestinian president to call off peace talks.
Israeli infantry started withdrawing from the town of Jebalya after midnight following several days of fighting, the military said, but the government vowed it would continue its offensive against rocket squads. Overnight air strikes targeting weapons manufacturing and storage facilities, a Hamas headquarters and groups of gunmen killed five Palestinians, all of them Hamas militants, Hamas said.
Yet despite days of fierce Israeli assaults, Gaza militants continued launching rocket barrages at areas in southern Israel, including Ashkelon, a city of 120,000. Three rockets hit Ashkelon on Monday morning, Israeli rescue services said, with one scoring a direct hit on an apartment building. No casualties were reported.
CBS News correspondent Robert Berger says Israel may have decided to end the ground operation due to the pending the visit Tuesday of America's top diplomat.
The moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, put peace talks with Israel on hold, clouding the upcoming peace mission by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The Israeli offensive also drew a chorus of international condemnation, with the EU, Turkey and U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon accusing Israel of using excessive force in Gaza.
Palestinian medical teams found three more bodies in Jebalya after the Israeli troops left. At least one of them was a militant, they said. Residents who had been trapped in their houses for days began emerging, and some collected equipment left behind by the Israelis: ammunition clips, food cans, two bloody stretchers and a helmet with a bullet hole in it.
Jebalya resident Ahmed Dardouna said he and his nine children had been confined to one room of their house by soldiers who occupied it for three days.
"We couldn't distinguish day from night," he said. "The sounds of shooting and explosions, mixed with the screaming of soldiers and the screaming of my children who were asking to go to bathroom and for food is still in my ears."
In all, 117 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the fighting erupted last Wednesday, according to militants and medical officials. Roughly half the dead were civilians, the officials said. One Israeli civilian was killed by a rocket, and two Israeli soldiers were killed in the Jebalya fighting.
Despite the lopsided death toll, Hamas sent a message to reporters calling the pullout a retreat by the "cowardly" Israeli military. But Israel said the withdrawal didn't signal it was scaling back its Gaza operations.
"Our efforts against the rocket launchers and those who operate them will continue unabated until Israeli children will no longer be attacked while sitting in their own classrooms, and until their families can sit in their own homes without fear of a rocket crashing through their roof," government spokesman David Baker said.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said a full-scale invasion was still possible, and Israel might try to bring down the regime of the militant Islamic Hamas. "We will use force to change the situation," Barak said at a meeting late Sunday of security commanders, according to a statement from his office.
In the early hours of Monday, Palestinians counted nine separate Israeli air strikes all over Gaza, one of them near the office of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who was not in the area at the time.
Vice Premier Haim Ramon said Israel should consider returning fire at the rocket launchers, even if it means shelling populated areas. "In the end, this will save lives on both sides," he said, since Palestinian civilians would either force the rocket squads from their neighborhoods or flee themselves. He told Israel Radio early Monday that "no reasonable country" would object to Israeli efforts to defend itself.
CBS News' George Baghdadi in Syria, reports thousands of people took to the streets of Damascus Monday (pictured at left) to protest Israel's actions.
"Stop the Palestinian massacres and bloodshed in Gaza. No, to Israeli Holocaust. Why are the Arabs silent," chanted angry Syrians, as others carried a huge banner declaring America "the ultimate devil" and burning Israeli and U.S. flags. The slogans were indicative of anger in much of the Arab world, reports Baghdadi.
The crowd, which gathered in Yousseif Azma square in the heart of the capital, brought traffic to a halt and forced shops to close.
Mohammad Saad, a shop owner watching reports from Gaza on television, said, "Arab leaders are unable even to agree on holding the Arab summit. We don't want conferences. We need actions, or let them allow us to react."