Israeli troops pulling out of Rafah in Gaza
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JERUSALEM (CNN) -- After a week of deadly clashes with Palestinians in southern Gaza, Israeli troops Friday began pulling out of the Rafah area, Israel Defense Forces said.
IDF did not say where the troops would be redeployed.
Israeli forces launched a major operation in Rafah refugee camp this week to close underground tunnels that Israel says are used to smuggle weapons into Palestinian territory from bordering Egypt.
Palestinian security sources said Israeli snipers remain on the rooftops and Israeli gunships are hovering overhead in some areas.
Bursts of heavy machine-gun fire could be heard in the background, CNN's Matthew Chance reported from Rafah's Brasil neighborhood.
In other neighborhoods that were the focus of "Operation Rainbow," residents say tanks and troops have withdrawn.
Ra'anan Gissin, a senior adviser for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the pullout indicated that the Israeli operation has been successful, despite international criticism.
"It means many of the missions of the force have been accomplished already and we have arrested the people that we want," Gissin said.
"We are not going to let down and leave that infrastructure intact."
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 40 Palestinians have died and 107 have been wounded since Tuesday, when Israeli troops began the crackdown. The Israeli tactic of destroying homes in Rafah, in southern Gaza, has drawn criticism from the United States and the U.N. Security Council. Israel says the tunnels often run under homes. (Full story)
Israeli security sources said the withdrawal does not mean IDF's work is complete in the area, adding activity against the "tunnels infrastructure" will continue.
"Sustained operations against the infrastructure of the tunnels and against those who are perpetrating the smuggling of weapons and continued action against Israeli citizens and Israeli towns and villages will continue as necessary," Gissin said.
Israeli military commanders said that before the Gaza operation, they received intelligence that the arms waiting to be smuggled into Gaza -- which included surface-to--air missiles capable of hitting Israeli cities -- portended a major escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
As the troops pulled out, they dropped pamphlets in Palestinian neighborhoods with the warning "Do not give aid to terrorists."
Israeli forces operating in southern Gaza killed at least eight Palestinians in Rafah on Thursday, including a local Hamas militant leader, Palestinian security sources said.
Palestinian sources in Gaza said Khaled Abu Anzeh, one of the local heads of the armed wing of Hamas, which has conducted terror attacks on Israelis, was on his way to plant explosives when he was shot.
U.N. condemns killings
The United Nations passed a resolution Wednesday condemning the killing of Palestinian civilians in southern Gaza and calling on Israel to stop demolishing homes there. The United States abstained from the vote, but a White House statement said the Israeli operation in Gaza did not appear to "serve the purposes of peace and security."
About 1,200 Israeli forces encountered machine-gun and anti-tank missile fire from Palestinians after entering the Rafah neighborhoods of Brasil and Salam along the Gaza-Egypt border Thursday, according to the Israeli military.
An Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile at a target in Rafah refugee camp late Thursday, Palestinian security sources said, but there was no immediate report of casualties from that strike.
Last week, 13 Israeli soldiers and at least 34 Palestinians died in fighting between Israelis and Palestinians across Gaza. Of those, 21 Palestinians were killed in Rafah.
CNN's John Vause, Talal Aburahma and Riad Ali in Gaza contributed to this report.
