The Associated Press - Nov. 7, 2006

Israeli forces on Tuesday ended a weeklong offensive aimed at halting rocket attacks from this northern Gaza town, leaving behind a devastating scene of wrecked homes, uprooted trees and sewage-covered streets.

Israel kept up its onslaught from outside the border town, killing 10 Palestinians in airstrikes, gunfire and tank shelling. But shortly after the pullback, the rocket fire resumed.

In one barrage, five rockets hit the Israeli city of Ashkelon, 12 kilometers (seven miles) from the Gaza border, the farthest the homemade weapons have reached into Israel. No one was hurt, the army said, but Israel hit back with artillery.

Palestinian leaders denounced the offensive, but internal problems remained unsolved as negotiations to form a unity government and end an international aid boycott dragged on.

In one incident Tuesday, two Israeli tank shells hit the house of Jamila Shanti, a female Hamas lawmaker who helped organize a demonstration of women last Friday that allowed dozens of Hamas militants to escape an Israeli siege on a mosque.

Palestinians doctors said three people were killed. Shanti was not at home. Hamas said two of the three were militants who were firing rockets. The army said it responded to an attack and had not targeted Shanti`s home.

After the predawn Israeli pullback from Beit Hanoun, hundreds of residents, who had spent most of the last week holed up inside their homes as troops and militants battled in the streets, milled around inspecting the damage the army left behind.

Homes in the town of 50,000 were damaged by tanks that rumbled through the town`s narrow streets. The armored vehicles left ripped up asphalt, trees and cars in their wake. The mosque that was the site of last week`s dramatic standoff was reduced to rubble. Only its minaret was left standing.

Khalil Yazgi, 45, watched as children and women picked through the rubble of the four-story structure that had been home to his extended family of 50 people. All that remained was a staircase and the exposed rooms of an apartment.

"If I was against the rockets, now I will encourage people to launch rockets from every spot," he said. "This is an act of terror ... It`s as though a crazy cow walked through a porcelain shop."

Telephone and electricity wires lay exposed on the destroyed roads, marked with tank tracks. Tanks destroyed the outer wall of the town`s cemetery, uprooting several tombstones. Some residents tried to fix the tombstones, while others dug fresh graves for those killed in the fighting.

During an emotional funeral procession, tens of thousands of mourners filed behind ambulances carrying 23 bodies. The funerals had been delayed because the bodies could not be retrieved from the hospital. Altogether, more than 60 Palestinians were killed in the offensive. Both sides said most were militants.

Women wailed as the bodies of the dead were brought out to the streets on stretchers draped with Palestinian flags, and children ran alongside the procession. Crowds chanted "God is great."

The ambulances struggled to drive along the damaged roads. Dozens of gunmen packed into loudspeaker cars, blaring nationalist songs and the slogans of militant factions, and other militants fired volleys into the air. The streets were awash in Palestinian flags and flags of militant groups.

President Mahmoud Abbas denounced Israel for continuing its attacks after leaving Beit Hanoun. "If Israel appeals for security and stability, shedding the blood of Palestinians is not the way," he said.

At the same time, Palestinian leaders struggled to find a formula for a new government, with the aim of ending eight months of crippling Western aid sanctions. The sanctions were imposed after Hamas, which is committed to Israel`s destruction, won legislative elections.

Though his talks with Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas did not produce an accord, Abbas remained hopeful. "I hope that we will reach to a conclusion within days, or maybe within less than days," Abbas told reporters Tuesday evening.

In a sign of the bitterness between the two movements, Hamas proposed Health Minister Bassem Naim as the new premier, but officials said Abbas rejected him. Naim is known as a harsh foe of Fatah.

The two sides differ over deeply held principles. Fatah negotiated interim peace accords with Israel in the 1990s and favors more peace talks, while the Islamic militant Hamas, despite Western demands, refuses to recognize Israel, rejects the agreements and endorses violent resistance.

The West cut off aid to the Palestinians when the Hamas-led government took office in March, and many public sector workers have not been paid since then. The West insists that the Palestinian government must accept its conditions before aid is restored.

Abbas hopes to form a government comprised of independent experts that will be accepted by the West.