WORLD NEWS

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - They both chose backdrops of destruction for their speeches, one the still smoldering ruins of a U.N. food warehouse and the other Gaza's demolished parliament building. But visiting U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and a senior Hamas leader delivered very different messages Tuesday. Ban voiced his sorrow and frustration over the suffering of civilians during Israel's three-week war on Gaza's Hamas rulers; some 1,300 Palestinians have been killed, the vast majority civilians. Ismail Radwan, a Hamas legislator, celebrated the blood battles as proof of Hamas strength and defiance. "Hamas today is more powerful," he told a crowd of several thousand.

However, beyond fiery words, Hamas offered no practical plans for rebuilding Gaza, which suffered some $2 billion in destruction. Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt, largely sealed since Hamas seized control 19 months ago, remain closed and are unlikely to open unless the militants relinquish some of their control.

Israel has also claimed victory, but like Hamas halted fire before reaching its objectives. It emerged from the war with relatively few casualties - 13 dead, including 10 soldiers - but no internationally backed truce deal is yet in place to prevent Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel or arms smuggling into Gaza. Israel had withdrawn the bulk of its forces from Gaza by Tuesday evening, coinciding with the inauguration in Washington of Barack Obama as president.

The temporary cease-fire remained shaky. Israel's air force struck a Gaza mortar squad after it shelled Israel, the military said. Hamas held more than a dozen victory rallies across Gaza, choosing bombed-out buildings as backdrops to underscore its message of defiance and its claim to have survived battle against a vastly more powerful enemy. Just a few hundred yards from the main Hamas rally in Gaza City, Ban toured the local U.N. headquarters, inspecting damage from an Israeli shelling attack last week. The shells hit car repair shops and three warehouses where flour, oil and other food rations for Gaza's growing population of needy were stored.