Hamas militants proclaimed victory yesterday as Israel pulled most of its ground forces out of Gaza, ending a five-day operation that resulted in the death of more than 100 people.

To ram home its point Hamas fired more rockets into southern Israel after the withdrawal but the Jewish state promised to launch more – and deadlier – raids to end the blitz.

A European delegation rushed in to urge both sides to cease the bloodshed that has cost 116 Palestinian and three Israeli lives in less than a week, and which has derailed peace talks between Israel and Hamas’s moderate rivals in the West Bank.

“The enemy has been defeated,” said Sami Abu Zuhri, the Hamas spokesman, as shell-shocked residents emerged from two days of cowering in cellars to scenes of devastation in the northern town of Jabaliya, the focus of the massive Israeli raid. Cars were burnt, streets ripped up by bulldozers and tanks and electricity pylons bent and broken. Many Gazans headed straight for the mourning tents of slain friends and relatives or to hospitals where the Strip’s medical services were struggling to cope with almost 350 casualties of the raid.

Hamas remained defiant, firing fresh barrages of missiles into Ashkelon, a city in southern Israel, and other Jewish communities surrounding the Strip. “Gaza will always be a graveyard for the occupation forces,” Mr Abu Zuhri said, even as Israel threatened that Operation Winter Storm was just an early squall in the tempest that could engulf Gaza if Hamas keeps firing its rockets.

“This operation was intended to show Hamas what could happen,” a senior Israeli official said. “If they decide they’ve seen enough and stop the rockets, then we may get into a period of quiet. If they continue to fire the rockets then there will be more operations like this one or worse.”

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, echoed those words as he offered to resume talks with the West Bank administration, whose leader, Mahmoud Abbas, cut all contact with Israel in protest at the death toll, which included more than 20 children. “We are not prepared to show any tolerance. Our reaction is not limited to a specific operation or day,” Mr Olmert said. “If we don’t continue the negotiations we will have to deal with a reality similar to the one in Gaza in the West Bank . . . There is no way to avoid the Gaza-fication process in the West Bank without offering a diplomatic horizon.”

Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, went to Jerusalem to try to find a political solution to the seemingly intractable crisis in Gaza, admitting that the situation was extremely complex. He offered no quick fix but did say that while there could be no direct contact with Hamas – listed by the EU, the US and Israel as a terrorist organisation – there were channels of communication through Egypt and the Arab League.

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, arrives today to try to push Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah back into talks.

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