Israel Pulls Ground Troops Out of Gaza

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Israeli Troops Withdraw From Gaza

Israeli ground troops pulled out of northern Gaza before daybreak Monday, following an offensive against Palestinian rocket squads that has left more than 117 dead and led the Palestinian president to call off peace talks.

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Thousands of people demonstrated Monday in Gaza City in what Hamas described as a victory rally, although throughout the strip the mood was anything but triumphant. Families that had been trapped in their homes for days emerged badly shaken by the violence, and anxious relatives thronged hospitals to check the fate of loved ones.

"The overall atmosphere is depressed," said Mona El Farra, a Gaza human rights advocate and health worker. "Hamas feels it has achieved victory because of the withdrawal. I don't agree. This is just part of the strategy of the occupation. They were not defeated."

Still, she said that the Israeli operations had improved Hamas's popularity in Gaza, almost nine months after the group seized unilateral control of the territory, upending a power-sharing agreement with Fatah. "People are appalled about what's happening," she said. "This operation unified people with the resistance and against the occupation."

Yossi Alpher, an Israeli security analyst and former top official in the intelligence service, said a full-scale invasion of Gaza "is what Hamas wants. It's classic guerrilla warfare: You draw the enemy into an occupation, and then you conduct a war of attrition."

But he said that ultimately, Israel may not have a choice, as long as Hamas continues to rain rockets on Israeli soil. "An effort to really wipe out Hamas may be the only thing that works," he said.

Special correspondent Islam Abdulkarim in Gaza City contributed to this report.