Israel completes pullout from Gaza

Israeli leaders worked at home and abroad Wednesday to reinforce a fragile cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and respond to international criticism of civilian casualties inflicted by their 22-day offensive against Hamas militants who control the Palestinian enclave.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met in Brussels with European leaders about preventing arms smuggling into Gaza, while in Tel Aviv, military officials said they were investigating complaints that Israeli forces ignored international restrictions on the use of phosphorous weapons during their attacks in Gaza.

As Israel completed a rapid troop pullout Wednesday morning, the World Health Organization released a report estimating that 1,300 Palestinians were killed during the fighting, including 410 children and 104 women. About 5,300 Palestinians were injured, half of them women and children, the report said.

At least 13 Israelis died, three of them civilians and four of them military personnel killed by friendly fire.

In addition to allegations of indiscriminate violence, critics accuse Israel of violating international law restricting the use of phosphorus arms, which can inflict horrific burns. Phosphorus artillery shells and similar weapons are not illegal, but the law bars their use in densely populated areas such as Gaza City, one of the most crowded areas in the world.

An Israeli committee led by a colonel will investigate the allegations by human rights groups and the foreign press, officials said Wednesday. The Israel Defense Forces established the committee Friday, according to the statement released by the office of the IDF spokesperson.

“In response to the claims . . . relating to the use of phosphorus weapons, and in order to remove any ambiguity, an investigative team has been established in the Southern Command to look into the issue,” the statement said. “It must be noted that international law does not prohibit the use of weaponry containing phosphorus to create smoke screens and for marking purposes. The IDF only uses weapons permitted by law.”

In another repercussion of foreign condemnation of Israeli tactics, the military made an unprecedented decision Wednesday to conceal the identities of field commanders who had been interviewed by the Israeli press. Military censors decided shortly before the airing and publication of the interviews that names would be withheld and faces blurred in television reports, according to the Israeli press.

The decision results from concerns about attempts to pursue war crimes prosecutions against Israeli officials in foreign courts. Military brass also warned officers that they might be in danger of arrest or violent reprisals if they travel abroad, according to press reports. During a visit to the Southern Command, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told soldiers that the government would protect them “like a fortified wall” against potential prosecutions, according to reports.

Chanting “War criminal,” hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated against Foreign Minister Livni’s visit in Brussels. Livni and 27 European counterparts discussed ways in which the European Union can contribute military forces, ships and technology to stop arms smuggling into Gaza by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups. In a plan outlined last week, the United States agreed to provide detection and surveillance equipment, logistical help and training to Israel, Egypt and others to monitor Gaza’s land and sea borders.

Israel said it launched the Gaza offensive to stop Hamas’ military buildup and end eight years of rocket attacks that have terrorized communities in southern Israel. The Hamas rocket arsenal has been either smuggled to Gaza from Iran or assembled by Hamas specialists with Iranian training, Israeli officials said.

“One of the goals of this operation, and this is a shared goal with the international community, is to stop the smuggling of weapons delivered by Iran to Hamas in the Gaza Strip,” Livni said after the meeting. She said she and the Europeans had discussed “a dual strategy: on one hand to work with a legitimate Palestinian government to create or to translate the idea of two states for two people into a concrete peace treaty. But this can work with a pragmatic Palestinian leadership as long as all of us continue to delegitimize Hamas.”

Pledging to support the anti-smuggling accord as part of a larger peace effort, on his first day in the White House, President Obama telephoned Olmert, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the leaders of Egypt and Jordan. Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator in the West Bank, said Abbas, who heads the Fatah faction that was ousted by Hamas in Gaza in mid-2007, was reassured by the call from the new president.

“Obama stressed that he and his administration will work in full partnership with President Abbas to achieve peace in the region,” Erekat said.

A Hamas spokesman was less enthusiastic, describing the Bush administration as “the devil on Earth” and demanding that Obama review American positions toward Hamas, which U.S. and Europe have designated a terrorist group.

“Obama faces a new test in relation to the Palestinian cause and the rights of the Palestinian people and their stolen rights,” Fawzi Barhoum said during a news conference in east Gaza.

In Damascus, Syria, a Hamas political leader reiterated calls for Western powers to talk to his group, which has long called for the destruction of Israel. Khaled Meshaal also admitted that he had been surprised by the ferocity and duration of the Israeli assault unleashed after warnings to Hamas to refrain from rocket attacks, according to the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram. Meshaal said he had thought the operation would last two or three days, the newspaper reported.

“Hamas played a part in creating the war against the Palestinians, but did not expect that it would last for 20 days,” Meshaal was quoted as saying.

Despite the Israeli withdrawal, Meshaal’s colleagues in Gaza have yet to emerge from hiding. There was speculation Wednesday that Ismail Haniyeh, the former prime minister, and Mahmoud Zahar, a hard-line political and military leader, might reappear in public at prayers on Friday, the Muslim holy day.

Israeli security officials say top Hamas figures hid from the combat in bunkers beneath hospitals because they knew Israeli forces would be unlikely to attack medical facilities.

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Times staff writer Ashraf Khalil and special correspondent Yasser Ahmad in Gaza, Batsheva Sobelman and Gabby Sobelman of The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau and Times staff writer Achrene Sicakyuz in Paris contributed to this report.