Hamas declares victories in rallies across Gaza Strip

A Gaza Health Ministry official said militants did not report all their dead fighters.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — They both chose backdrops of destruction for their speeches, one the still smoldering ruins of a U.N. food warehouse and the other Gaza’s demolished parliament building.

But visiting U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and a senior Hamas leader delivered very different messages Tuesday.

Ban voiced his sorrow and frustration over the suffering of civilians during Israel’s three-week war on Gaza’s Hamas rulers; some 1,300 Palestinians have been killed, the vast majority civilians.

Ismail Radwan, a Hamas legislator, celebrated the blood battles as proof of Hamas strength and defiance. “Hamas today is more powerful,” he told a crowd of several thousand.

However, beyond fiery words, Hamas offered no practical plans for rebuilding Gaza, which suffered some $2 billion in destruction. Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt, largely sealed since Hamas seized control 19 months ago, remain closed and are unlikely to open unless the militants relinquish some of their control.

Israel has also claimed victory but, like Hamas, halted fire before reaching its objectives. It emerged from the war with relatively few casualties — 13 dead, including 10 soldiers — but no internationally backed truce deal is yet in place to prevent Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel or arms smuggling into Gaza.

Israel had withdrawn the bulk of its forces from Gaza by Tuesday evening, coinciding with the inauguration in Washington of Barack Obama as president. However, the temporary cease-fire remained shaky. Israel’s air force struck a Gaza mortar squad after it shelled Israel, the military said.

Hamas held more than a dozen victory rallies across Gaza, choosing bombed-out buildings as backdrops to underscore its message of defiance and its claim to have survived battle against a vastly more powerful enemy.

Just a few hundred yards from the main Hamas rally in Gaza City, Ban toured the local U.N. headquarters, inspecting damage from an Israeli shelling attack last week. The shells hit car repair shops and three warehouses where flour, oil and other food rations for Gaza’s growing population of needy were stored.

Five days after the shelling, piles of rice, beans and medicine were still smoldering, and Ban spoke to reporters just a few feet away from where the white smoke rose into the air. The buzz of Israeli unmanned aircraft could be heard overhead.

The U.N. chief said he felt “utter frustration, utter anger” over the shelling of the compound and two U.N. schools and demanded a full investigation. Israel has said troops responded to fire from militants from these areas, a claim the U.N. has vehemently denied.

During a tour, Ban was told that hundreds of tons of food and medicine were destroyed. “It’s totally outrageous and unacceptable,” he said, shaking his head.

He later visited the Israeli border town of Sderot, a frequent target of Hamas rockets and expressed sympathy with residents.

“You live every day with a threat of a rocket falling from the sky. No human being can live in a state like this,” Ban said. “I expect basic humanitarian law to protect civilian life to be respected and restored and not violated as Hamas has done.”

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights has reported that 156 militants were killed in the fighting, including 48 from Hamas, 34 from Islamic Jihad and the rest from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement and smaller factions.

However, a Gaza Health Ministry official who also keeps track of casualties, Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, said he believes Hamas and other militant groups have not reported all their dead fighters. Hamas leaders have not spoken publicly about the number of fighters killed in an apparent bid not to hurt morale. Hamas commands about 20,000 armed men.

Two of the top five Hamas leaders were killed in the Israeli bombings. The others, Mahmoud Zahar, mastermind of the 2007 Gaza takeover, and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, have not emerged from hiding.

A dozen victory rallies across Gaza were led Tuesday by second-tier Hamas officials.

In Gaza City, Hamas legislator Radwan spoke from a terrace near the five-story parliament, reduced to a gray pile of concrete by bombings. Nearby, Hamas security men held up a large banner in Hebrew, that read: “Hamas is victorious. Israel has been defeated.”

Radwan said Hamas is stronger than ever and poised to one day take control not just of the West Bank, but also of Israel. “Gaza is not our goal,” he told the crowd. “The liberation of all of Palestine, from the river to the sea, God willing, will be achieved.”

That uncompromising message is not necessarily shared by all Hamas leaders in Gaza. Ghazi Hamad, another leader, told journalists this week that Hamas would be satisfied with ending Israeli control over areas occupied in the 1967 Mideast War — the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.

However, hard-liners seem to be setting the tone at a time when the international community is scrambling to broker a more durable cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

Any deal would have to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza, but also end the blockade of the territory — requiring compromises that neither side has been willing to make.

Many ordinary Gazans are apprehensive about their future.

“I’m not affiliated with anyone. I just want to raise my eight children,” said Jawdat Abu Nahel, who sells tea and coffee from a cart in Gaza City’s Square of the Unknown Soldier. He dismissed Hamas’ victory claims.

“We can’t talk about real victory because there were thousands of martyrs, and we didn’t liberate anything,” he said.

However, Samiha Shaheen, 45, watching the rally from a park bench, said Gazans should be proud.

“We, the people of Gaza, survived the full extent of Israel’s force, the tanks, the warplanes, the shelling, the rockets. Is that not a victory?” she asked.