KHAN YUNIS, GAZA STRIP — Uniformed police officers returned to the streets of Gaza on Monday, machine guns in hand, as Hamas declared that Israel's 22-day air and land assault had done nothing to weaken the militant group's authority here.
"Hamas emerged from this battle with its head held high," said Hamad al Ruqb, a Hamas official in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip. "Every Israeli attack only increases our support."
As Israeli tanks and soldiers continued their withdrawal, residents emerged from weeks of hiding to assess the damage. In addition to a death toll estimated at more than 1,300, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics estimated infrastructure and economic losses at almost $2 billion.
The director of the agency said that 21,000 buildings were either damaged or destroyed -- nearly 1,000 structures every day of the Israeli campaign.
Much of the reconstruction costs will be met by donations from Arab countries. At an Arab League summit Monday in Kuwait, Saudi King Abdullah pledged $1 billion toward rebuilding Gaza.
As the tanks withdrew Monday, the full scope of the destruction began to come into focus.
In the village of Fukhari, outside Khan Yunis, it seemed as if a powerful earthquake had struck, flattening a collection of 15 homes belonging to a single extended family, a swath of destruction the size of a city block. Israeli tanks and bulldozers rolled through this agricultural patch last week, destroying every building in sight.
Stunned residents picked through the wreckage among muddy, thigh-high tread marks, salvaging clothing, blankets and undamaged cinder blocks, hauling anything usable away on tractors and donkey carts.
"They even killed the chickens and the turkeys!" shouted Faour Atteya, a 50-year-old high school teacher. "They killed the cats!"
At Atteya's feet, his 2-year-old-son, Yasser, sat wailing atop a small pile of muddied clothes.
Colorful bits of debris jutted out of a nearby pile of rubble: a small plastic chair, bits of construction paper and a coloring book.
"This was the neighborhood nursery school run by a charitable organization," Atteya said.
A short drive away in the village of Khozaa, residents pointed cautiously at the lone Israeli tank still visible in the distance. A fierce thrust by the vehicles had destroyed at least a dozen homes, killing at least 13 people.
