Gazans begin cleanup amid fragile ceasefire

Gaza residents cleared rubble and claimed victory on Thursday, just hours after an Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers ended the worst cross-border fighting in four years.

The ceasefire announcement had set off frenzied late night street celebrations in the coastal strip, and raised hopes of a new era in relations between Israel and Hamas. The two sides are now to negotiate a deal that would open the borders of the blockaded Palestinian territory.

"Today is different, the morning coffee tastes different and I feel we are off to a new start," said Ashraf Diaa, a 38-year-old engineer from Gaza City.

However, the vague language in the agreement and deep hostility between the combatants made it far from certain that the bloodshed would end.

Israel launched the offensive on Nov. 14 to halt renewed rocket fire from Gaza, unleashing some 1,500 airstrikes on Hamas-linked targets, while Hamas and other Gaza militant groups showered Israel with hundreds of rockets.

It was the worst fighting since an Israeli invasion of Gaza four years ago.

The eight days of relentless strikes killed 161 Palestinians, including 71 civilians — and six Israelis, including a reservist who died Thursday of injuries sustained in a Palestinian rocket attack.

Israel also destroyed key symbols of Hamas power, such as the prime minister's office, along with rocket launching sites and Gaza police stations.

The CBC's Derek Stoffel met a chief doctor at Gaza's Shifa hospital who says staff treated at least 100 patients every day of the conflict. The doctor says the hospital is short of antibiotics and a few other medications.

Despite the high human cost of the fighting, Hamas claimed victory Thursday.

"The masses that took to the streets last night to celebrate sent a message to all the world that Gaza can't be defeated," said a spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri.

While it is far from certain that Hamas will be able to pry open Gaza's borders in upcoming talks, the latest round of fighting has brought the Islamists unprecedented political recognition in the region. During the past week, Gaza became a magnet for visiting foreign ministers from Turkey and several Arab states — a sharp contrast to Hamas' isolation in the past.

"They had a parade of foreign ministers, mostly from Arab countries, coming through here. The significance was that in the past, many of those same Arab countries had either ignored Gaza — that's the way they felt — or had actively tried to sideline Hamas as sort of a fringe organization," CBC's Sasa Petricic reported from Gaza on the first day of the ceasefire.

Israel and the United States, even while formally sticking to a policy of shunning Hamas, also acknowledged the militant group's central role by engaging in indirect negotiations with the Islamists. Israel and the West consider Hamas, which seized Gaza by force in 2007, to be a terrorist organization.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, meanwhile, defended his decision not to launch a ground offensive, in contrast to Israel's invasion of Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009.

"You don't get into military adventures on a whim, and certainly not based on the mood of the public, which can turn the first time an armoured personnel carrier rolls over or an explosive device is detonated against forces on the ground," he told Israel Army Radio.

"The world's mood also can turn," he said, referring to warnings by the U.S. and Israel's other Western allies of the high cost of a ground offensive.

JUST MILES AWAY, WHERE ISRAELI TROOPS HAD PREPARED TO INVADE GAZA, THE ORDER WAS GIVEN TO STAND DOWN FOR NOW.

However, with the ceasefire just a few hours old, Israel was not rushing to bring home all of the thousands of reservists it had ordered to the Gaza border in the event of a ground invasion, Barak said.

Barak was defence minister during Israel's previous major military campaign against Hamas, which drew widespread international criticism and claims of war crimes.

The mood in Israel was mixed, with some grateful that quiet had been restored without a ground operation that could have cost the lives of soldiers.

Others — particularly those in southern Israel who have endured 13 years of rocket fire — thought the operation was abandoned too quickly and without guaranteeing their security.