MIDDLE EAST:Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has promised more military action in Gaza, while Hamas leaders declared victory yesterday, just hours after Israeli troops ended a deadly incursion into the coastal strip and militants ceased firing rockets into Israel.
The five-day Israeli operation, which included a raid deep into the populated areas of Gaza, left more than 100 Palestinians dead and hundreds more injured.
However, senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar said yesterday that the Islamic movement had "achieved a great victory in the five-day war over [ defence minister Ehud] Barak and Olmert and their agents in the region".
As troops took up positions on the Gaza border, Mr Olmert told deputies in parliament that the army was still "in the midst of a combat action".
"What happened in recent days was not a one-time event," an official quoted the prime minister as saying. "The objective is reducing the rocket fire and weakening Hamas."
Hamas, however, anxious to show it had not caved in to Israeli military pressure, continued to fire rockets even as troops withdrew. Two longer-range rockets yesterday hit the city of Ashkelon, some 10km north of Gaza.
In the latest violence, both sides have tried to establish a new balance of deterrence. Hamas has shown it is willing to fire rockets at a major Israeli city, while Israel has tried to show the Islamic movement, which governs Gaza, the price it will pay for an attack on a city like Ashkelon - more than 100 Palestinians dead in just five days.
Vice prime minister Haim Ramon seemed to reflect the frustration in the government over Israel's inability to prevent the rocket fire when he proposed yesterday that the army respond with artillery fire rather than troops.
"As they fire a Qassam (rocket), we must fire a shell at the area from where they fired."
Asked whether artillery fire wouldn't result in heavy civilian casualties, especially with militants often firing from populated areas, Mr Ramon responded: "I say to the residents, if you don't have the strength to prevent the rocket fire, then flee."
Faced by the growing death toll in Gaza and demonstrations by Palestinians in the West Bank, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas announced that contacts with Israel were being suspended,but Mr Olmert insisted yesterday that Israel had every intention of continuing talks with the Palestinians.
"We want to continue the negotiations, because the alternative to negotiation is a Hamas regime in the West Bank as well," he said.
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice arrives in the region today. She is likely to be forced to concentrate on the latest blood-letting and to try to ensure it doesn't derail the talks altogether.