Israel

Every day he scours the market for apples, okra, diapers; listening to the warnings of men with radios to their ears and the rumble of shells and missiles, a strange throb that plays through blackouts and prayers at the mosque until Yousif Nagla returns home. Death notices rattle on alley walls, replaced quickly by new ones. If he's lucky, on a good day, he can find oranges and thyme in the market, breathing in their scents like the times before the bomb craters and quickly dug graves.

In declaring a cease-fire Saturday in Gaza, Israel asserted that it had achieved its goals: hurting Hamas' military wing, discouraging rocket fire into Israel and cutting the flow of smuggled arms into Gaza. But Israel had a broader goal: sending a tough message to its arch-enemies Iran and Hezbollah.

The graves are dug, the wounded tended, but the battle over what happened in the Gaza Strip during Israel's 22-day offensive remains unfinished. International organizations, citing videos and witnesses, say Israel may have committed war crimes in Gaza's villages and city alleys. The Israel Defense Forces deny such allegations, issuing their own video clips and assessments.

On the first Friday since Israel ended its 22-day offensive in the Gaza Strip, some Palestinians gathered for weekly mass devotions by spreading prayer rugs on the streets outside the wreckage of mosques devastated by missile strikes. Among those not making a public appearance, however, was the top local political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh. Rumors had been rife that Haniyeh, an Islamic religious scholar, would emerge from weeks of hiding to deliver a sermon.

Hours after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared victory in the Gaza Strip, the hawkish contender to succeed him paid a visit to wounded soldiers and insisted that the enemy had not been defeated. "We have a strong people and a strong military that dealt a harsh blow to Hamas, but unfortunately the work is still not done," Benjamin Netanyahu said before television cameras outside a hospital last week. "Hamas still controls Gaza." That was only the warmup.

There were 14 of them huddled under the stairs. Israeli shells and airstrikes had long since shattered every window of the Helw family's three-story home. But underneath the concrete staircase, they said, they felt relatively safe -- until the soldiers came early in the morning on Jan. 4. There was pounding on the courtyard door, they recalled last week, and voices in accented Arabic shouted, "Who's in there?"

Defiant red graffiti on the white outdoor wall evoked the sounds of war. "The roar of the lions against the roar of the Jewish helicopters," it said in rhyming Arabic, extolling the Hamas fighters who had stood up to Israel. But the dominant sound Friday in Gaza City's Asqula district was the growl of motorcycle engines, a sign that life in the Gaza Strip, battered and bloodied by a 22-day Israeli assault, is edging back to normal.

Less than a week before Israeli voters pick a new leader, the candidate most involved in negotiations with the Palestinians is on the defensive over newly reported details of an interim peace accord offered months ago by outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

You can't see "Waltz With Bashir" legally in Lebanon but you can buy copies of the Oscar-nominated Israeli antiwar film in Beirut's Hamra district, where director Ari Folman saw his life change 26 years ago. "It's one of the greatest films I've ever seen," said Lokman Slim, an activist with Lebanon's UMAM organization, which aims to preserve the country's memories of war by screening movies related to its decades of bloodshed.

Portraits of two Israeli Arab politicians, defaced by red Hebrew letters reading "Shame and Disgrace!" flashed on a giant video screen. Jeering erupted in the hall, packed for the tough-talking candidate whose bid to lead Israel is propelled by unease about its Arab minority. Avigdor Lieberman's attacks on Arabs have shaken up the race for parliament and prime minister.