Gaza: both sides declare victory as cleanup and body count begin

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and Ismael Haniyah, the leader of Hamas who was elected Prime Minister of all Palestine in 2006, have both declared victory in the three week long battering of Gaza, but for the 1.5 million people who are imprisoned in that tiny strip of desert land, the end of hostilities ushers in a new chapter of suffering as they face the daunting task of cleaning up the sewage and rubble, sifting through the remains of their homes for the remains of their missing loved ones. Israeli officials said that their main objective of limiting Hamas's ability to fire rockets from Gaza into southern Israel had been achieved, and that they had "dispelled the myth that there's no way to stop a terrorist organization from firing rockets at our civilian population." Dan Schueftan, deputy director of the National Security Studies Center at Haifa University said that Israel had "levied such an exorbitant price that those rockets weren't cost-effective anymore." Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed Israelis on television hours before declaring a unilateral cease-fire, saying the army's goals "were more than fully achieved." At the same time, Haniyeh claimed that "the enemy has failed to achieve its goals," calling the devastation of Gaza, in which more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed and over 5,000 wounded, a "popular victory" for Palestinians. Hours after the Israelis declared a unilateral truce, Hamas declared a unilateral truce as well. No progress had been made in negotiations between the two sides being mediated by Egypt. All is quiet for the first time in three weeks in Gaza, as Israel pulls back its reservists and tanks, its planes and helicopters back on the ground, and no rockets have been fired from Gaza into southern Israel. Now the principal sound is the drone of bulldozers scooping up buckets of rubble, and the wailing of wives and mothers as they discover the bodies of their prematurely buried family members. Scores of bodies have already been recovered from the more than 25,000 buildings damaged or destroyed by the Israeli barrage. Many are too badly disfigured to identify, or are partially rotted or consumed by scavengers. Complicating the cleanup and recovery, untreated sewage flows through the streets and collects in the impact craters left by Israeli bombs. Defiant Hamas leaders insist that their organization has hardly been affected by the flattening of Gaza. Their estimate of 48 Hamas fighters lost in the three-week war differs radically from Israel's estimate of 500. But both sides agree that Hamas' ability to replenish its supply of Qassam rockets has not been eliminated. The head of Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency, Yuval Diskin, conceded that Israel's offensive failed to wipe out Hamas' network of arms smuggling tunnels below the border with Egypt. Diskin said "the operation did not deal an irreversible blow to the tunnels industry," and he expects Hamas will immediately set about rebuilding its smuggling network. Israel acquiesced to international calls for a cease fire only after securing agreements from both the US and Egypt to clamp down on smuggling. The exact nature of the agreements is not known at this time.