(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-03-03 22:23

JEBALYA, Gaza Strip --  Israeli ground troops pulled out of northern Gaza before daybreak Monday, following the first extended sweep in an offensive against Palestinian rocket squads that has left more than 100 dead and led the Palestinian president to call off peace talks.

Blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinians, detained during an Israeli army operation in the Gaza Strip, are brought to Israel by soldiers after a military operation in the Gaza Strip, near Kfar Aza, southern Israel, early Monday, March. 3, 2008. [Agencies]

Overnight, Israeli airstrikes targeting weapons manufacturing and storage facilities, a Hamas headquarters and groups of gunmen killed five Palestinians, all of them Hamas militants, Hamas said. But Gaza militants continued launching rockets at southern Israel. Three rockets hit Ashkelon, a city of 120,000, Monday morning, Israeli rescue services said, with one striking an apartment building. No casualties were reported.

Israeli infantry started withdrawing from the town of Jebalya after midnight following several days of fighting, the military said, but the government vowed it would continue its offensive against rocket squads.

Palestinian medical teams found three more bodies in Jebalya after the Israeli troops left. At least one of them was a militant, they said. Residents trapped in their houses for days began emerging, and some collected equipment left behind by the Israelis: ammunition clips, food cans, two bloody stretchers and a helmet with a bullet hole in it.

Jebalya resident Ahmed Dardouna said he and his nine children had been confined to one room of their house by soldiers who occupied it for three days.

"We couldn't distinguish day from night," he said. "The sounds of shooting and explosions, mixed with the screaming of soldiers and the screaming of my children who were asking to go to bathroom and for food is still in my ears."

In all, 117 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the fighting erupted last Wednesday, according to militants and medical officials. Roughly half the dead were civilians, the officials said. One Israeli civilian was killed by a rocket, and two Israeli soldiers were killed in the Jebalya fighting.

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