Israel Steps Up Gaza Withdrawal After Ceasefire

Israel pulled out more troops and tanks from the Gaza Strip this morning in what the government said would be a swift withdrawal – as long as a fragile truce holds.

Hamas followed Israel in agreeing a ceasefire yesterday, ending three weeks of heavy fighting in Gaza that left more than 1,200 Palestinians dead and much of the coastal territory in ruins.

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, indicated that his government wanted to get forces out of Gaza "at the greatest possible speed".

The government spokesman Mark Regev said that if Gaza remained quiet the pull-out would be "almost immediate". Other officials told Associated Press that the plan was to get out before Barack Obama's inauguration as US president tomorrow.

Israel has made it clear it will remain ready to retaliate if provoked by Hamas. Seventeen rockets were fired into Israel yesterday, some of them after Hamas declared its ceasefire.

News of the truce galvanized international diplomatic activity. The Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, the chief Arab mediator, called a brief summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh yesterday. "We must secure the ceasefire and in the next phase make certain that Israeli forces withdraw from Gaza, the crossings are reopened and the siege is lifted," he said.

Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, announced a tripling of UK humanitarian aid to Gaza, pledging an additional £20m. He also criticised Israel for using excessive force. "We are yet to discover the full scale of the appalling suffering," he said. "But what is already clear is that too many innocent civilians, including hundreds of children, have been killed."

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been working closely with the Egyptian president, said: "Israel should state immediately and clearly that if rocket fire will stop, the Israeli army will leave Gaza."

Jordan's King Abdullah, who like Mubarak has a peace treaty with Israel, said it was vital for the EU to coordinate with the incoming administration in the US to think of the "day after".

"We need to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem immediately," Abdullah said. "If we don't do that, it will only be a matter of time before many world leaders will be meeting again and calling for a ceasefire in this region." It was urgent to keep alive the Arab peace initiative offering Israel recognition if a Palestinian state were created, he said.

A spokeswoman for Obama said he welcomed the truce and would say more about the situation in Gaza after his inauguration.

After an hour of round-table talks and a chaotic press conference, Brown, Sarkozy, Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Mirek Topolánek, prime minister of the Czech Republic, which currently holds the EU presidency, flew to Tel Aviv to meet Olmert, who expressed "deep remorse" last night for civilian casualties in Gaza.

Two crucial questions have to be settled if the ceasefire is to be followed by a return to calm. The first is how to stop weapons smuggling across the Egyptian border to Gaza's Hamas rulers. Linked to that is the Hamas demand that the blockade of the coastal strip be lifted.

Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, said the best way to stop smuggling through tunnels under the border was to open Gaza's crossing points with Israel to allow in commercial goods.

With the Palestinian death toll standing at more than 1,200 and rising as more bodies are found under the Gaza rubble, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, said he was sending a humanitarian needs assessment team to compile a report within 10 days.