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 On the streets of the battered, Hamas-run Palestinian enclave,
people headed to shops and banks, trying to resume the normal pace
of life after seven weeks of fighting. Thousands of others, who had
fled the battles and sheltered with relatives or in schools,
returned home, where some found only rubble.
In Israel, sirens warning of incoming rocket fire from the Gaza
Strip fell silent, but media commentators, echoing attacks by
members of Netanyahu's governing coalition, voiced deep
disappointment over his leadership during the most prolonged bout of
Israeli-Palestinian violence in a decade.
"After 50 days of warfare in which a terror organization killed
dozens of soldiers and civilians, destroyed the daily routine (and)
placed the country in a state of economic distress ... we could have
expected much more than an announcement of a ceasefire," analyst
Shimon Shiffer wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's biggest-selling
newspaper.
"We could have expected the prime minister to go to the President’s
Residence and inform him of his decision to resign his post."
Netanyahu, who has faced constant sniping in his cabinet from
right-wing ministers demanding military action to topple Hamas, made
no immediate comment on the Egyptian-mediated truce deal that took
effect on Tuesday evening.
Palestinian health officials say 2,139 people, most of them
civilians, including more than 490 children, have been killed in the
enclave since July 8, when Israel launched an offensive with the
declared aim of ending rocket salvoes.
Israel's death toll stood at 64 soldiers and six civilians.
The ceasefire agreement called for an indefinite halt to
hostilities, the immediate opening of Gaza's blockaded crossings
with Israel and Egypt, and a widening of the territory's fishing
zone in the Mediterranean.
A senior Hamas official voiced willingness for the security forces
of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the unity
government he formed in June to control the passage points.
Both Israel and Egypt view Hamas as a security threat and are
seeking guarantees that weapons will not enter the territory of 1.8
million people.
Under a second stage of the truce that would begin a month later,
Israel and the Palestinians would discuss the construction of a Gaza
sea port and Israel's release of Hamas prisoners in the occupied
West Bank, possibly in a trade for the remains of two Israeli
soldiers believed held by Hamas, the officials said.
 Israel has in recent weeks said it wants the full demilitarization
of Gaza. The United States and European Union have supported the
goal, but it remains unclear what it would mean in practice and
Hamas has rejected it as unfeasible.
COMPETING VICTORY CLAIMS
"On the land of proud Gaza, the united people achieved absolute
victory against the Zionist enemy," a Hamas statement said.
Israel said it dealt a strong blow to Hamas, killing several of its
military leaders and destroying the Islamist group's cross-border
infiltration tunnels.
"Hamas's military wing was badly hit, we know this clearly through
unequivocal intelligence," Yossi Cohen, Netanyahu's national
security adviser, said on Army Radio.
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But Israel also faced persistent rocket fire for nearly two months
that caused an exodus from a number of border communities and became
part of daily life in its commercial heartland.
"They are celebrating in Gaza," cabinet minister Uzi Landau, of the
far-right Yisrael Beitenu party in Netanyahu's coalition, told
Israel Radio. He said that for Israel, the outcome of the war was
"very gloomy" because it had not created sufficient deterrence to
dissuade Hamas from attacking in the future.
Nahum Barnea, one of Israel's most popular columnists, expressed
concern "that instead of paving the way to removing the threat from
Gaza, we are paving the road to the next round, in Lebanon or in
Gaza".
"The Israelis expected a leader, a statesman who knows what he wants
to achieve, someone who makes decisions and engages in a sincere and
real dialogue with his public," he wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth. "They
received a seasoned spokesperson, and very little beyond that."
Ben Caspit, writing in the Maariv daily, said there was no victory
for Israel in a conflict that resulted in "a collapsed tourism
industry (and) an economy approaching recession".
Israel's central bank has estimated the conflict will knock half a
point off economic growth this year.
But with future diplomatic moves on Gaza's future still pending,
there was no immediate talk publicly among Netanyahu's coalition
partners of any steps to break up the alliance.
Israel said it would facilitate the flow of civilian goods and
humanitarian and reconstruction aid into the impoverished territory
if the truce was honored.
But, Cohen said: "(Hamas) will...not get a port unless it declares
it will disarm. It will not get even one screw unless we can be sure
it is not being used to strengthen Gaza's military might."
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said 540,000 people had been
displaced in the Gaza Strip. Israel has said Hamas bears
responsibility for civilian casualties because it operates among
non-combatants and uses schools and mosques to store weapons and as
launch sites for rockets.
(Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem; Writing by
Jeffrey Heller, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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