The Sri Lankan Government has blocked access to aid workers trying to help the nearly 300,000 civilians displaced by the army’s victory over the Tamil Tigers, raising the prospect of a humanitarian catastrophe.

In the capital, Colombo, President Rajapakse announced the “complete defeat” of the rebels yesterday as state television showed pictures of what was said to be the corpse of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tigers’ leader. Mr Rajapakse vowed in an address to the nation to press ahead with a “homegrown political solution” to end ethnic divisions between the majority Sinhalese population and minority Tamils.

As he spoke, an estimated 80,000 people — mostly Tamil, many of them sick, malnourished or suffering from battlefield wounds — were making their way on foot from the war zone In the north to government-run camps that are already swamped. The UN is not being allowed any access to them, The Times has learnt.

Accounts of conditions inside the camps — gained from testimony recorded covertly by aid workers — and the journey to them are horrifying.

Preema, a Tamil woman, arrived at the 400-hectare (990-acre) Menic farm camp on Sunday. She had left Mullaivaikal, the centre of the fighting, where the Tigers had made their final stand before being defeated, days before, after being shelled heavily.

She set out with her husband, mother and two children, to wade through the Nandikadal lagoon — a waterway strewn with mines — in a desperate attempt to reach safety.

There were deep craters where the lagoon had been bombed and people often drowned, she said. A man offered to carry her ten-year-old daughter. Preema never saw them again. Her husband was taken away later by government troops at a checkpoint in Oomanthai, where refugees are being forced to strip before being allowed to pass, after admitting that he had worked for the Tigers. Her mother died in the lagoon.

“Everything is lost,” said Preema, holding her son, 7. “Please help me find my daughter. Not knowing anything is making me crazy.”

Inside one camp, Nandani, 76, described being forced to stand for up to five hours a day queueing for food.

Kala, a middle-aged woman, spoke about the constant indignities of her new life. “I do not have underwear. I am unable to use the Kotex that the Red Cross handed out,” she said, holding a packet of sanitary towels she had been given before the organisation’s access to the camp was restricted.

Kothai, another woman, said: “There is a bad distribution system within the camp. Every time it is the same people that get \. Men crowd around and push the women and children aside.”

Government officials did not answer requests for comment. Access for aid agencies to another 200,000 refugees already in the internment camps — which the Government call “welfare villages” — has been severely restricted since Sunday, preventing the administration of basic care.

Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, is due to travel in Sri Lanka on Friday to offer help to rebuild the ravaged northeast of the country and urge the Government to reach out to the Tamil population.

“These people have endured one of the cruellest military sieges of modern times — daily shelling over several months,” an international aid worker said. “They need urgent help.” There are fears that the camp populations — especially children — will be hit by contagious diseases. Chickenpox, hepatitis A and dysentery outbreaks have been reported. Medical facilities are said to be woefully inadequate.

There are also concerns that the suffering will radicalise previously moderate Tamils, especially amongst the community’s international diaspora, which had been a key source of funding for the Tigers.

Most Sri Lankans are delighted by the defeat of the Tigers, a terrorist force that fought for 26 years for an independent Tamil homeland, propagating a war that left at least 70,000 dead. Many Tamils were against the rebels after they recruited child soldiers and terrorised their own people.

Tamils in the camps describe being fired on by both sides in the conflict.

Vavathan, 59, said that Tiger troops had forcibly recruited children as young as 15 in the conflict zone, even in the final stages when it was clear that they had lost the conflict. “The war was over, why were they still taking the children?” she asked.

There were doubts over the sincerity of Mr Rajapakse’s pledge to build bridges between the Sinhalese and Tamil minority. He has seldom brooked dissent, his opponents say.

Sri Lanka on brink of catastrophe as UN aid blocked

The fact-finding mission appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate rights violations during the Gaza war also renewed a call for Israel to support its investigation.

Richard Goldstone, who heads the four-member mission, stressed that his team would adopt a law-based approach in preparing its report to council in July, and would investigate alleged rights violations by both Israel and Hamas.

“I would like to emphasize that we will focus our investigation not on political considerations, but on an objective and impartial analysis of compliance of the parties to the conflict with their obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law, especially their responsibility to ensure the protection of civilians and non-combatants,” said Goldstone, a former UN war crimes prosecutor in a statement issued on Friday.

“I believe that an objective assessment of the issues is in the interest of all parties, will promote a culture of accountability and could serve to promote greater peace and security in the region,” the South African judge said.

The mission intends to conduct visits to southern Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and has requested the cooperation of the Israeli government.

The other members of the team include Christine Chinkin, professor of international law at the London School of Economics; Hina Jilani, an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan; and Col. (ret.) Desmond Travers of Ireland, a member of the board of directors of the Institute for International Criminal Investigations (IICI).

On Wednesday, President Shimon Peres told reporters that IDF forces did not intentionally aim at civilians or UN facilities during Operation Cast Lead. However, he acknowledged that Israel might have made “some mistakes.”

Speaking after a private meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Peres repeated the government’s position that it would not accept “one word” of the UN report released Tuesday on the attacks on UN facilities during the recent fighting.

The report, commissioned by Ban in February, blamed Israel for failing to take adequate precautions to ensure that UN installations and civilians sheltering in them would be protected from shells or other fire intended for Hamas terrorists.

According to the report, the IDF was responsible for fatalities and damage in six cases, including a strike that killed people sheltering at a Gaza school.

UN team probing Gaza war to visit Strip

Ban spoke to President Mahinda Rajapaksa on the telephone Tuesday night amid heavy international pressure for a humanitarian cease-fire in the conflict. Rajapaksa has brushed off such calls, saying a truce would give the rebels a chance to regroup.

The government has cornered the remaining rebel fighters — along with tens of thousands of civilians — in a narrow coastal strip in the north and stands on the brink of victory after a nearly quarter-century civil war.

Speaking to reporters in New York, Ban said he asked Rajapaksa for “a humanitarian pause in the fighting” to allow aid into the conflict zone and urged the government to stop using heavy weapons in areas heavily populated by civilians.

“I repeat: Protecting civilians and respecting international humanitarian law, must be priority one. The world is watching events closely, including for violations of international law,” he said.

The government pledged last week to stop using artillery fire and air strikes, but health officials in the war zone say such attacks have continued.

Ban also said the Tamil Tigers should let the estimated 50,000 civilians trapped by the fighting out of the war zone and to stop forcibly recruiting fighters from their ranks.

“Above all, there is an urgent need for the two sides to bring the conflict to a peaceful and orderly end,” he said.

The appeal came as a British parliamentary delegation finished a two-day tour of the country and a Canadian Cabinet minister also visited. Last week the British and French foreign ministers traveled here to personally press for a humanitarian truce.

The intense fighting since the end of January has killed about 6,500 civilians, according to a U.N. document compiled last month. Hundreds of more civilians have been reported killed since then.

During the phone conversation, Rajapaksa invited Ban to visit the country and personally assess the situation, according to a statement from the president’s office. U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss said no decision had been made on such a visit.

The rebels said in a statement Tuesday that civilians trapped in the war zone were facing starvation and accused the government of blocking food deliveries. Health officials in the area have also said the elderly and children were suffering and dying in increasing numbers because of lack of food.

Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said the government had delivered enough food and accused the rebels of grabbing the supplies for themselves.

Reporters and independent observers are barred from the war zone making the government’s claims difficult to verify.

The rebels have been fighting since 1983 for a separate state for minority Tamils, which have suffered decades of marginalization at the hands of governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority.

UN calls for cease-fire in Sri Lanka civil war

Ethnic Baluch separatists had earlier claimed responsibility for the abduction and at one point threatened to kill Mr Solecki — the highest-profile Westerner to be kidnapped in Pakistan since Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was beheaded in 2002. News of Mr Solecki’s release came as a suicide bomber attacked a crowded Shia mosque in central Pakistan, killing at least 28 people.

Shakil Baloch, a spokesman for the Baluch Liberation United Front (BLUF), one of several separatist groups fighting for greater autonomy in Pakistan, told local journalists that Mr Solecki was released on humanitarian grounds. “We want to give a message to the international community that Baluch are not terrorist,” he said.

Rehman Malik, the federal Interior Minister, said that Mr Solecki was freed because of personal intervention by President Zardari. Some sources in the Government said that his release was agreed in negotiations with the BLUF involving Pakistani and US officials. “There was certainly a trade- off,” one official said.

The BLUF, which is fighting for greater autonomy for Baluchistan, had been demanding the release of Zarina Baloch, a women’s rights activist, and several others being held by security forces. Human rights groups say hundreds of Baluch nationalists have been detained without trial since security forces killed Akbar Bugti, a former governor of Baluchistan and nationalist leader, in 2005.

The Government has already freed some of the detainees that the BLUF wants released, and has promised to find out about others. It is not clear whether those released included Ms Baloch, who rights activists say was taken away by security forces a few years ago and was also allegedly raped, although the Government denies detaining her.

Harbiar Marri, a Baluch separatist leader now living in London, is also believed to have played a significant role in securing Mr Solecki’s release. The Pakistani Government has sought the extradition of Mr Marri, whose brother, Balach Marri, lead the insurgency in Baluchistan and was killed by security forces two years ago.

Baloch provincial and UN officials declined to comment on the reasons for Mr Solecki’s release.

Jennifer Pagonis, a UN spokesman, said only that he was flown to the United States by special medical flight early yesterday morning after spending the night in a military hospital in Quetta. “He seemed OK this morning,” Ms Pagonis said.

Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, said that he was grateful for the efforts to secure Mr Solecki’s release, citing Mr Zardari and President Karzai of Afghanistan.

His release was a rare piece of good news in Pakistan, which has suffered a wave of kidnappings, bombings and commando-style attacks in the past year, mostly blamed on Islamic militants based in northwestern Pakistan.

The militants apparently struck again yesterday when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a crowded Shia mosque in the town of Chakwal, central Pakistan, killing at least 28 people and wounding more than 50.

A senior police officer said that the bomber, believed to be in his teens, detonated his explosive after he was stopped by security guards at the entrance of the mosque, where 2,000 worshippers were gathered. “The casualties would have been much higher had the bomber not been intercepted at the entrance,” said Zulfikar Chaudhry, the local police chief.

Witnesses said that the blast occurred during a brief interval in the religious session when the worshipers were going in and out of the mosque.

“There was a huge blast and a lot of smoke. I rushed to the main gate and saw several bodies lying in a pool of blood and body parts scattered all around,” said Qazi Wafa, who was inside the mosque.

It was the first such incident in Chakwal district, in central Punjab province, which is the main recruiting ground for the Pakistani Army. The attack came hours after another suicide bombing killed eight paramilitary soldiers at a security post in Islamabad, the capital.

Hakimullah Mehsud, a deputy to the top Taleban commander Baitullah Mehsud, said that his group was responsible for that attack. Mehsud has claimed responsibility for a raid on a police training school in Lahore that killed 13 people last week.

Yesterday’s attack also followed a bombing late last month on a packed mosque near the Afghan border which killed at least 48 people in the worst attack in Pakistan this year.

Meanwhile, Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships and jets killed at least 18 militants in Mohmand, one of seven lawless tribal districts in northwestern Pakistan where Taleban and al-Qaeda militants are sheltering.

UN hostage John Solecki released in Pakistan as militants attack mosque

China expanded its arsenal last year even as tensions eased after the election of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) said.

“In this period of warmth, a war won’t break out, but don’t forget China still has 1,500 missiles aimed at Taiwan — more than 1,500 — and that’s not right,” Lai said. “They’re always adding [missiles].”

The Ministry of National Defense estimated early last year that there were 1,300 missiles pointing at Taiwan.

“This is something that we keep appealing about to mainland China, to take the missiles offline,” Lai said. “If you take so many missiles and aim them at a neighbor, will he feel comfortable?”

Beijing added missiles every year as a deterrent and to update its arsenals, said Andrew Yang (楊念祖), secretary-general with the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies, a Taipei think tank.

Dong Feng 11 and Dong Feng 15 short-range ballistic missiles are believed to be based in southeast China, about 160km away.

Meanwhile, Taiwan has cut annual live-fire military drills to once every two years and reduced its defense budget for this year.

China’s defense budget for this year has not been released. Last year, the government said it would spend 418 billion yuan (US$61 billion) on defense, up 17.6 percent from the previous year.

Taipei Times – archives

Two weeks of civil unrest stoked by a power struggle between President Marc Ravalomanana and the sacked mayor of the capital, Andry Rajoelina, have killed some 125 people and worried multinational firms investing in the giant Indian Ocean island.

One senior police officer, who asked not to be named, told Reuters that up to 25 people were killed when security forces opened fire on an opposition rally in Antananarivo. Shots rang out in the background and sirens wailed.

Doctors said about 180 people arrived at the city’s main Ravoahangy Andrianavalona hospital. Many were bloodied and some lay groaning on stretchers in the corridors.

“The crowd was walking peacefully, then all of a sudden the military opened fire,” Jocelyn Ratolojanahary told Reuters at the hospital, nursing a heavily bandaged hand. She said she saw several bodies lying back at the palace.

Rajoelina accused the government of murdering civilians.

“The people were not armed, they only had their courage,” he said on his private Viva Radio after the shootings. “The popular resistance will continue. The protests will not stop here.”

Ravalomanana blamed the opposition leader for the violence and said what had happened was “scandalous and intolerable.”

“He (Rajoelina) led people to take the presidential palace by force and didn’t know how to control them,” Ravalomanana told state television. “This is not the way Madagascar will develop.”

“ECONOMIC CATASTROPHE

The opposition accuses the president of being a dictator.

Ravalomanana, who has galvanized the world’s fourth largest island’s reputation as a safe haven for tourists, denies it and has called for dialogue to end the bloodshed.

A week ago, Rajoelina, 34, declared he had taken power. At an earlier rally on Saturday, the fiery former mayor — who has led a series of opposition strikes and protests — named a prime minister to head an interim government.

Ravalomanana says he is still in charge and he sacked Rajoelina on Tuesday. Leaders from the continent meeting at an African Union summit in Ethiopia this week condemned the attempts to oust the 59-year-old self-made millionaire.

The British Foreign Office advised British citizens against traveling to Madagascar. “We have raised the level of our travel advice to advise against all travel,” it said in a statement late on Saturday.

Madagascar has opened its doors to foreign firms which are exploring for oil, gold, cobalt, nickel and uranium. Big investors include Rio Tinto and Sherritt International.

Speaking to Reuters late on Friday before the latest violence, the U.S. Ambassador to Madagascar, Niels Marquardt, said the turmoil had been disastrous for the country.

“The economy is in a catastrophic situation,” he said. “There are hardly any tourists in Madagascar right now. Textile orders are falling every day, contracts are being revoked.”

Business was shifting to Kenya and Bangladesh, he said.

Analysts say Rajoelina, nicknamed TGV after the French express train, has successfully tapped into widespread public frustration with the government. But they say he may have over-played his hand in trying to overthrow the president.

On Saturday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s special envoy to Madagascar, Haile Menkerios, arrived in Antananarivo for a four-day mediation visit. The Eritrean diplomat told a news conference that his team would meet all concerned parties.

Up to 25 shot dead at Madagascar demonstration: police | International | Reuters

Organizers hailed the demonstrations – meant to highlight unemployment and declining spending power in a time of crisis – as a great success.

François Chérèque, secretary general of the CFDT union, called the protest “the biggest nationwide demonstrations in 20 years.” He said in Paris that private sector workers had turned out in surprisingly large numbers, showing that workers from across the spectrum were “expressing their fears about the future.”

But participation in a nationwide strike called by eight big unions appeared to have fallen short of expectations, and came nowhere near the general strike they had called for. In contrast with previous strikes that virtually shut down transportation in the capital, a new law mandating a minimum level of service appeared to have kept most Parisians moving.

Workers, mostly government employees, walked off their jobs throughout the country – snarling transportation, closing public offices and schools, and forcing airports to reduce flights. Government estimates suggested that from one-quarter to one-third of public sector workers had joined the protest. Employees of some large international companies joined in, even employees of the bourse operator NYSE-Euronext.

The CGT and Force Ouvrière unions estimated that 2.5 million people had demonstrated throughout France, with at least 300,000 marching in the capital and many more in Marseille, Lyon and 200 other cities and towns. The Interior Ministry estimated that about 1.1 million people had marched in France.

Faced with expectations that the economy will contract by nearly 2 percent this year, Sarkozy in December announced a €26 billion, or $34 billion, stimulus plan. He has earmarked capital injections of more than €10 billion for banks and said the government would help struggling automakers. But his determination to reduce the number of permanent public sector jobs, especially in the schools, has hit a nerve.

As the Paris marchers got started Thursday afternoon, tens of thousands of people crowded into the Place de la Bastille. A festive atmosphere prevailed, with rock music thumping and huge balloons emblazoned with the names of the eight unions that organized the march.

“People are sending a message that they are fed up with Sarkozy’s government,” said Frédérique Henrard, 40, a writing teacher at a high school in the suburb of Noisiel, east of Paris. She added that she did not have high expectations for a change of policy because “Sarkozy doesn’t care what people think, he just goes straight ahead.”

As the Paris march was ending, more than 100 youths clashed with police near the Opera Garnier, hurling various objects. The police responded with tear gas and some trash cans were set afire. No arrests were immediately reported.

In a statement late Thursday, Sarkozy adopted a conciliatory tone, noting that the public had “legitimate concerns.” The crisis, he said, “imposes a duty upon the authorities to listen, to discuss and at the same time a great determination to act.” He said he would meet with union leaders in Februry to explain his 2009 reform agenda and discuss how to best carry it out.

French governments have often backed down from unpopular programs when the public opposition became too heated. According to the results of a poll by CSA-Opinion for Le Parisien, 69 percent of the French either “supported” or “had sympathy” for the demonstrations. No margin of error was available for the nationwide survey of 1,007 French adults carried out Jan. 21 and 22.

Hundreds of thousands protest in France

“The secretary-general is deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of civilians caught in intensified fighting in the Vanni region of Sri Lanka,” a spokesman for Ban said in a statement Monday.

Ban called on the government and the separatist Tamil Tigers to respect “no-fire zones” and civilians areas, including schools, hospitals and humanitarian posts. He also asked both sides to allow the 250,000 civilians trapped in the fighting to move to “safe areas.”

Sri Lankan soldiers seized a key rebel stronghold in a surprise attack Sunday, even as humanitarian agencies feared for the safety of civilians. Video Watch a report on the recent fighting »

“It’s an incredibly serious situation,” James Elder, a U.N. spokesman, said Monday. “We have a very large number of people, including tens of thousands of children, trapped in a fast-shrinking conflict zone.”

Troops crossed a lagoon and entered the town of Mullaittivu before encountering heavy resistance from Tamil fighters, according to the government-run news agency.

“Our troops fought their way through a 40 km (25 mile) thick jungle track,” Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka said in a televised address Sunday.

“This is the long-awaited victory and I am happy to say that our heroic forces today captured the Mullaittivu town after 12 years,” the Sri Lanka Army chief said.

There has been no confirmation from the rebels that the strategic garrison has been overtaken.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) — commonly known as the Tamil Tigers — have fought for an independent homeland for the country’s ethnic Tamil minority since 1983. The civil war has left more than 70,000 people dead.

The rebels gained control over Mullaittivu in 1996 and established a military garrison there, according to the government.

In recent days, the military has said it has made significant progress in its campaign to recapture rebel strongholds.

Earlier this month, troops regained control of the northern town of Elephant Pass, the point at which mainland Sri Lanka links to the northern Jaffna peninsula.

It had been in rebel hands for more than nine years.

The recapture enabled the government to use a highway linking the mainland to the peninsula to move troops and supplies. Previously, it was done by air and sea.

“The area that the LTTE has dominated has shrank phenomenally,” Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India, C.R Jayasinghe, told CNN. “They lost … about 90 percent of what they had.”

U.N. demands safety for Sri Lankan civilians – CNN.com

John Ging, head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, called for new U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell to talk to ordinary people in Gaza as part of a “new track” in diplomacy.

U.S. President Barack Obama named Mitchell, a former U.S. Senator who helped settle the conflict in Northern Ireland, on Thursday to try to jump-start Arab-Israeli peace talks.

“My first request to the U.S. administration is talk to the ordinary people in Gaza. Come to Gaza and talk to the ordinary people — the mothers, fathers, leaders of civil society, the people who are not involved in politics,” Ging, speaking from Gaza, told reporters in Geneva.

“They are still quite shell-shocked but there is more and more anger growing.”

It is urgent to establish accountability for death and the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure through a credible mechanism which would “channel this emotion to confidence in the rule of law,” Ging said.

“The extremists here — there are more now at the end of this conflict than there were at the start, that’s the product of such conflict — are very confident in their rhetoric that there should be no expectation that justice will be delivered through the rule of law. Now we must prove that wrong,” he said.

The investigation had to examine “legitimate allegations” on both sides, as Israeli civilians had also suffered, he said.

“But it is a challenge we must succeed in achieving. Because if we don’t, then we have truly conceded to the agenda of the extremists here in Gaza,” he added.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said he expected Israel to provide urgently a full explanation of attacks on U.N. facilities in Gaza, including schools used as shelters, and said those responsible must be held accountable.

Israeli attacks killed 1,300 people and made thousands homeless in the 22-day assault which Israel said was to stop Hamas firing rockets at southern Israel. Hamas and Israel declared ceasefires on Sunday and Israel has withdrawn.

Ging, who is Irish, welcomed Mitchell’s appointment.

“An individual of his experience and ability coming now to this conflict gives me cause for more than hope, it actually gives me cause for optimism that we will move on to a new track where we will see real progress,” he said.

“What we hope will happen is that the U.S. administration will listen to the people. There has to be a rebalancing of the focus,” he said.

War boosted extremists in Gaza, says U.N. official | International | Reuters

The Palestinian group fired at least 15 rockets and mortars into southern Israel to show that it had not been crushed. It then gave Israel seven days to withdraw its forces and open Gaza’s border crossings to allow in desperately needed humanitarian aid.

Some Israeli troops did leave Gaza, giving victory signs to the television cameras, but they were a fraction of the total deployment.

As the fighting subsided, the scale of the destruction became apparent. Rescue teams pulled nearly 100 bodies from the rubble of previously inaccessible areas, taking the Palestinian death toll to more than 1,200 — half of them civilians. Thirteen Israelis have been killed, all but three of them soldiers.

The Palestinian Authority said that 4,000 homes, 48 government offices, 30 police stations and 20 mosques had been destroyed, along with many utilities, roads and schools, and that 14 per cent of Gaza’s buildings had been damaged.

The UN Relief and Works Agency said that 53 of its schools, clinics, warehouses and other installations in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed, many by direct hits.

Gordon Brown attended a hastily convened summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh yesterday, chaired by President Mubarak of Egypt and President Sarkozy of France. Also attending were Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, and senior politicians from Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Jordan.

The Prime Minister told reporters on his flight to Egypt that Israel should allow humanitarian workers full access to Gaza and said that Britain had pledged an additional £20 million in aid. In an apparent criticism of the scale of the Israeli response to the Hamas rocket attacks, Mr Brown said that too many innocent people had died in the 22-day assault on Gaza.

Egypt agreed to organise an international donors’ conference to rebuild Gaza. Following America’s lead, the European countries promised technical, military and diplomatic measures to address Israel’s key demand – that the smuggling of weapons to Hamas through tunnels beneath Gaza’s nine-mile border with Egypt be stopped.

Mr Brown said that British naval vessels would help to intercept weapons from countries such as Iran.

Last night the European representatives flew on to Israel to meet Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister.

“The Israelis must clearly indicate that as long as there is an end to the rocket firing the army must leave Gaza,” Mr Sarkozy said.

Around the Hamas stronghold of Zeitun, rows of homes have been levelled by Israeli tanks and bulldozers. Citrus orchards have been flattened and workshops wrecked. Cars and trucks lie upside down and roads are blocked by debris and electric cables. “It’s like being hit by a tsunami,” said Mustafa Kozad, 57, a mechanic.

Ahmad Said, 73, who said that the Israeli offensive had strengthened support for Hamas, said: “I can’t believe what’s happened. These people are like the Nazis. They’re doing to us what was done to them by the Germans.”

Mohammed Abu Hamaid, 30, agreed. “I’m full of hatred for these savages,” he said of the Israelis. “I wish I had a camera to take pictures of this destruction. Then I could show them to my children so they would never forget it and seek to avenge it.”

The Israeli security Cabinet approved the ceasefire by seven votes to two on Saturday night. Mr Olmert said that Israeli troops would stay in Gaza until Hamas’s response became clear.

Israel was keen to call a halt to the fighting before the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States tomorrow.

Mr Olmert argued that Operation Cast Lead had seriously weakened Hamas and sent a powerful warning to Iran, Hezbollah and other regional enemies not to meddle with Israel.

Some Israelis, however, complained that Egypt had given no guarantee that it would stop the smuggling, and that Hamas remained in control of Gaza with hundreds of rockets, thousands of fighters and many of its smuggling tunnels still intact.

Israel has also failed to secure the release of Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier who was captured by Gazan militants in 2006.

Watershed weekend

January 17

— The Israeli security Cabinet votes in favour of a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza, to begin at 2am the following day

— A United Nations official calls for a war crimes investigation after the deaths of two children, aged 5 and 7, in the Gazan town of Beit Lahiya. They died when an Israeli shell struck a three-storey building

January 18

— Hamas fires at least 15 rockets into Israel

— The Israelis respond with two airstrikes

— Moussa Abu Marzouk, Hamas’s deputy leader, declares a one-week ceasefire, but Israeli authorities report sporadic rocket attacks

— Israeli troops begin withdrawing from Gaza

— Egypt hosts summit of European and Arab leaders to co-ordinate policy on Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Hamas announces week-long ceasefire in Gaza – Times Online