Emboldened Hamas Declares Victory

Emboldened by surviving Israel's military onslaught, Hamas declared victory Tuesday in rallies attended by thousands supporters waving green Islamic flags atop the ruins in Gaza.
The Islamic militants taunted Israel _ one huge banner proclaimed Israel's defeat in Hebrew _ and said Gaza is just a stepping stone for eliminating the Jewish state. "Hamas today is more powerful," Ismail Radwan, a Hamas leader, told a crowd from a terrace overlooking Gaza's main square, with the demolished parliament building serving as a backdrop.
However, beyond the fiery words, Hamas has offered no plans for rebuilding Gaza, which suffered about $2 billion in destruction during Israel's three-week war on Hamas. Also, Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt, largely sealed since Hamas seized Gaza 19 months ago, are unlikely to open unless the militants relinquish some of their control.

Just a few hundred yards (meters) from the main Hamas rally, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon 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 (meters) away from where the white smoke rose into the air. The buzz of Israeli unmanned aircraft, accompanied his remarks.
The world's top diplomat 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. Israel says it's carrying out its own investigation.

During a tour of the compound, Ban was told that hundreds of tons of food and medicine had been destroyed in Thursday's shelling. "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 in recent years, and expressed sympathy with the 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."

Ban personally intervened during the war to try to stop the violence that killed nearly 1,300 Palestinians, including about 900 civilians and 168 civil police, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).

The Gaza-based group also reported that 156 militants were killed, including 48 from Hamas, 34 from Islamic Jihad and the rest from Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement and smaller factions. Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, a Gaza Health Ministry official who also keeps track of casualties, said he believes Hamas and others 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 undermine morale. Hamas commands about 20,000 armed men.

In any case, Hamas has set the bar low for declaring victory _ to survive Israel's assault, which included air strikes on more than 2,500 targets, as well as a two-week ground offensive.
Hamas' leadership has remained largely intact, with two of the top five killed in Israeli bombings. Still, the others, particularly strongman Mahmoud Zahar, mastermind of the 2007 takeover, and Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh have not yet emerged from hiding.

Instead, a dozen victory rallies across Gaza were led Tuesday by second-tier Hamas officials. In several locations, marchers assembled at bombing sites, apparently to underscore the message of defiance.

In Gaza City, legislator Ismail Radwan spoke from a terrace near the new five-story parliament, reduced to a gray pile of concrete by several bombings. Next to him, on the terrace, 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, ruled by Abbas, a Hamas rival, but also of what is now Israel.
"Gaza is not our goal," he told a subdued crowd of several thousand. "The liberation of all of Palestine, from the river to the sea, God willing, will be achieved," he said, referring to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Hamas speaks with several voices, and Radwan's uncompromising message is not necessarily shared by all Hamas leaders in Gaza. For example, Ghazi Hamad, a pragmatic leader, told journalists earlier 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, hardliners 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 so far been unwilling to make.
Israel had withdrawn the bulk of its forces from Gaza by Tuesday evening, coinciding with the inauguration of Barack Obama as U.S. president. However, the temporary cease-fire remained shaky.

Palestinians and human rights workers reported that Israeli troops shot to death two Gaza farmers in separate incidents since the truce took hold Monday. The military said troops returned fire in one case, and had no information on the other. On Tuesday evening, the air force struck a Gaza mortar squad after it shelled Israel, the military said.

The rebuilding of Gaza is also turning into an increasingly contentious issue.

Many donor countries may be reluctant to funnel aid to Hamas, but may also not want to get embroiled in Hamas' political battle with Abbas, who is seeking a leading role in rebuilding Gaza.
On Tuesday, an Arab League summit in Kuwait ended without agreement on a reconstruction plan. One camp, led by Syria and Qatar, supports Hamas. The other, headed by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, wants to pressure the Islamic militants to moderate their positions.
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.