Special to WorldTribune.com

TEL AVIV — The Israel Army, amid heavy Palestinian fire, has withdrawn from the Gaza Strip.

Military sources said about 90 percent of the estimated 8,000 troops have already left the Gaza Strip. They said the remainder were deployed around the southern Gaza town of Rafah, believed to contain a major part of the tunnel weapons network.

“The troops are in the midst of a redeployment to other parts of the border,” military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner. “Indeed, we are releasing troops from the front line but the mission is ongoing.”

Military sources, however, reported a sharp decline in ground operations on Aug. 3. At the same time, Hamas and its Palestinian militia allies fired some 120 rockets into Israel, several of which were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile and rocket defense system. The air force responded with air-to-ground missiles that in one case was said to have killed 10 people in a United Nations facility.

“Ground forces are operating,” Lerner said. “Air forces are operating.”

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a unilateral withdrawal amid heavy pressure from the United States. The sources acknowledged that the withdrawal suspended a military campaign to destroy Palestinian weapons tunnels and missile and rocket arsenal.

“We are finishing up de-commissioning these tunnels,” Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, told U.S. television. “We hope that that job will be completed in a matter of hours, not days.”

On Aug. 4, the military declared another unilateral ceasefire. The military said the ceasefire, amid continued Hamas rocket fire on major Israeli cities, would last for seven hours and be utilized for humanitarian purposes.

The threat of another Hamas tunnel attack in Israel has also blocked the return of thousands of Israelis to communities along the Gaza Strip. The military ordered one community, Kibbutz Zikim, to remain in their homes amid a threat of a Hamas infiltration from the Mediterranean Sea. In mid-July Hamas frogmen landed in Zikim.

Officials said Hamas was encouraged by the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. They said Hamas sought to incur Israeli military and civilian casualties to show Gazans that the Jewish state was defeated.

“We are still fighting,” Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Ze’ev Elkin said. “Whoever thinks that this operation is over needs to ask Hamas leader Khaled Masha’al.”

  Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel withdraws 90 percent of troops from Gaza but ‘mission is ongoing’, Khaled Masha’al, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, Rafah, Ze’ev Elkin