Hamas and Israel separately announce Gaza ceasefire

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas announced an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip Sunday and gave Israel, which had already declared a unilateral truce, a week to pull its troops out of the territory following a three-week war.

There was shooting from both sides after their separate announcements, but broadly the ceasefire appeared to be gaining strength and Israeli troops began pulling out of Gaza, which they entered on January 3, a week after an air offensive began.

"We don't want to stay in Gaza, and we intend to leave it as soon as possible," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said after holding talks with European leaders in Jerusalem.

Troops and tanks could be seen streaming back over the border from Gaza from early Sunday, all but ending combat after a 22-day conflict in which more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed. Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians also died.

In Gaza, families began emerging from their places of hiding, including U.N. school compounds where some 45,000 people sought refuge during the fighting, and returning to their homes -- some only to find them damaged or destroyed.

According to the Palestinian Statistics Bureau, some 4,000 residential buildings were reduced to rubble during the conflict. Western diplomats have said it could cost at least $1.6 billion to repair the infrastructure damage in Gaza.

Hamas, whose rocket fire Israel said triggered its assault, announced its ceasefire about 12 hours after Israel's own move and said its Islamist allies in Gaza would also adhere to it.

Hamas's Gaza leader, Ismail Haniyeh, claimed a "popular victory" for Palestinians over Israel. "The enemy has failed to achieve its goals," he said in a speech on Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV.

Israel's spy services struck back, cutting into an Al-Aqsa broadcast with images of air strikes on Palestinian rocket crews and dead gunmen. A final title card read: "Hamas was defeated!"

Hamas officials, during talks with Egyptian mediators, said the faction demanded the opening of all Gaza's border crossings for the entry of "all materials, food, goods and basic needs."

French President Sarkozy -- joined by the leaders of Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic as current president of the European Union for talks with Olmert -- called on Israel to open Gaza's borders to aid as soon as possible.

WAR FALLOUT

Yet despite the signs of the ceasefire gaining momentum, there still remains no formal deal between Israel and Hamas.

The Gazan situation looks much as it did before the conflict -- armed standoff and a dim future for the 1.5 million people fenced inside the territory by a blockade aimed at punishing Hamas for rocket fire and ambitions to destroy the Jewish state.

As scores of bodies of Hamas fighters were recovered from suddenly quiet urban battlefields Sunday, Gaza medical officials said about 700 of the 1,300 dead were civilians.