As Israel withdrew its forces from the northern Gaza Strip yesterday after a two-day assault on Hamas militants, and as Palestinians emerged from their houses to inspect the damage, Hamas leaders seemed to be following the playbook of their Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, in its 2006 war with Israel.
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Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, said that like Hezbollah, Hamas had "gone from the stone to the rocket."
"What we learned from Hezbollah," he said, "is that resistance is a choice that can work."
The clearest example of echoing Hezbollah came yesterday when thousands attended a so-called victory rally, and Mahmoud Zahar, an influential Hamas leader, came out of hiding to tell the rallygoers that his organization would rebuild any house that had been damaged by the strikes.
Holding up his group as the source of reconstruction as well as resistance is precisely the message that brought local and regional acclaim to Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, when his organization faced down Israeli attacks in summer 2006 through rocket barrages on Israel.
The latest surge in hostilities between Israel and militants in Gaza left 116 Palestinians dead, according to Dr. Moawiya Hassanain of the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza, making it the deadliest fighting in Gaza in a year. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting in northern Gaza on Saturday, and one Israeli civilian was killed Wednesday by rocket fire in the border town of Sderot.
But more than 200 rockets have been fired at Israel since Wednesday, according to Israeli military officials, including at least 21 longer-range Katyusha-style rockets, which are manufactured outside Gaza and brought into the strip. Palestinians and Israelis see the use of those rockets as another illustration of the growing similarity between Hezbollah and Hamas, the militant Islamic organization that controls Gaza.
"We are very concerned that the role model for Hamas in Gaza is the Lebanese Hezbollah," said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, when asked about parallels between this conflict and the one with Hezbollah.
Israeli officials say that Hezbollah not only is a model for Hamas but also provides it with training and logistical support. They add that Hamas has also adopted other Hezbollah tactics, operating out of civilian areas and in some cases storing weapons in homes, creating similar dilemmas for the army that it faced in its war in Lebanon in 2006.
Soon after the forces left northern Gaza yesterday, two more of the imported rockets struck Ashkelon, an Israeli coastal city of 120,000 people about 10 miles north of the strip. One rocket hit an apartment block, causing damage but no serious injuries.
Hamas has claimed responsibility for most of the rocket fire. Hamas took over Gaza last June after routing forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah.
Abbas, who is now based in the West Bank, suspended peace talks with Israel as the death toll rose in Gaza, and yesterday he called on all sides to agree to a cease-fire and to allow him to act as a mediator, a day before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was expected to arrive in the area for talks.
Israel says its ground and air forces have been aiming only at rocket squads and weapons storage and production facilities in Gaza.
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