Israeli forces withdraw from Gaza town

The pullout coincided with another failed effort by Palestinian leaders to forge a unity government that might lead to lifting of Western aid sanctions that have bankrupted the Palestinian Authority and caused widespread hardship.

Israeli leaders said the object of the raid was to reduce the frequency of Palestinian rocket fire at nearby Israeli towns and villages, but militants kept launching their homemade rockets throughout the operation.

The sweep came in for harsh international criticism because of the death toll and destruction. Israel said most of the dead were militants, but some were women and children. An Israeli soldier was also killed.

Yesterday, the sixth day of the sweep, at least seven Palestinians were killed, including a female suicide bomber.

Islamic Jihad released a video of the bomber, identified as Mirvat Masoud, after she blew herself up, wounding an Israeli soldier. “My dear mother, I ask you to remain strong and forgive me, and God willing we will meet in heaven,” she said on the video.

Only of a few of the more than 100 Palestinian suicide bombers in the past six years were women.

Also, an Israeli missile aimed at a group of militants landed near a Palestinian kindergarten, killing a teenage boy, critically wounding a teacher and seriously wounding eight children, doctors said.

The army said an airstrike in the same area targeted four militants coming to collect launchers used to fire rockets into Israel.

Moderate president Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and prime minister Ismail Haniyeh of the militant Islamic Hamas met for more than two hours last night but failed to agree on a unity government. Both sides said the talks would continue today.

Mustafa Barghouti, an independent politician playing a key role in the talks, called the meeting “fruitful".

He said: “There was agreement on some issues, but some issues still need to be discussed.” He would not say what issues remain open.

Abbas, a moderate, has been urging Hamas, which controls most government functions, to join his Fatah movement in a coalition to end international sanctions.

A Hamas Web site and Palestinian officials said the new prime minister would be current Health Minister Bassem Naim, a Hamas activist. However, officials said Abbas rejected him. Naim has a rich anti-Fatah record.

The platform of the emerging government, however, is vague about the key international demand of recognising Israel and may not be enough to end the painful aid boycott.

Under the emerging plan, the Hamas Cabinet and prime minister would step down and be replaced by a team of experts in the hope of ending the Western boycott, imposed when Hamas came to power in March.

However, top Hamas leaders have yet to decide whether to accept the plan, and similar negotiations have broken down before.

Whether the government would meet the international demands remained unclear. The Quartet of Middle East peacemakers – the US, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia – demands that any Palestinian government renounce violence, recognise Israel’s right to exist and accept past peace deals.

Western donors, led by the US and EU, have cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority.

Without the funds, the Palestinian government is caught in a cash crisis, largely unable to pay the salaries of some 165,000 employees and causing widespread hardship in Gaza and the West Bank.

Public service workers have been striking, but late yesterday a teachers’ strike was called off, a union official said. The school year was to start today, two months behind schedule, said civil service union head Bassam Zakarneh, after the Education Ministry pledged to find the money to pay the teachers.