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Hamas seeks to restore order in Gaza

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

On Monday, Saudi Arabia pledged $1 billion to the reconstruction project.

However, a top European Union official said Europe wouldn't help to rebuild until Gaza was governed by rulers acceptable to the EU. The European bloc considers Hamas a terrorist organization.

A Palestinian woman walks in a cemetery surrounded by destroyed buildings after Israel's offensive in Beit Lahiya 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]

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner suggested international help in rebuilding Gaza could come if the Fatah Party of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas returned to Gaza. Hamas seized control from Fatah, and reconciliation efforts have failed.

At least 1,259 Palestinians were killed in Israel's assault, more than half of them civilians, according to the United Nations, Gaza health officials and rights groups. Thirteen Israelis died, including 10 soldiers.

Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida said 48 of the group's fighters died, a figure far below the hundreds of militants that Israel says it killed. Hamas also said 165 policemen were killed. Smaller militant groups reported an additional 104 fighters dead.

On Monday, Gaza City residents picked through the ruins. Electricity cables dangled all over the city. Those who could afford expensive fuel relied on generators, but donkey carts piled with tree branches and split logs plied the streets, providing the city's most impoverished with wood for cooking and heating.

In the northern town of Beit Lahiya, several teenagers stood around eight simple, unmarked graves in a graveyard that they said belonged to a Hamas leader and members of his family killed in an Israeli airstrike.

"People said that Hamas had given up resistance, but they were the ones who fought the Israelis when they came, so all of Gaza supports Hamas," said 15-year-old Eimad Abul Maeza.

France, Britain, Germany, Spain and Italy have sought to consolidate the truce by offering technical help to prevent Hamas' arms smuggling and humanitarian relief to ease the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

European Union officials announced plans for talks on Wednesday with Israel's foreign minister and on Sunday with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and the Palestinian Authority to discuss prospects for a permanent peace agreement.

French officials said it is time to push beyond the truce and quickly hold an international conference on resolving the underlying conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

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