JERUSALEM - The last Israeli troops left the Gaza Strip before dawn Wednesday, the military said, as Israel dispatched its foreign minister to Europe in a bid to rally international support to end arms smuggling into the Hamas-ruled territory.
The timing of the troop pullout reflected Israel's hopes to defuse the crisis in volatile Gaza before U.S. President Barack Obama settled into the White House. The military said troops remain massed on the Israeli side of the border, poised for action if Palestinian fighters violated the three-day-old truce.
Obama called the Palestinian president and the leaders of Israel, Jordan and Egypt, in keeping with his promise to get involved with Middle East peacemaking. Diplomatic officials in Washington said Obama was expected to name former Sen. George Mitchell as special envoy to the region.
The Israeli troop withdrawal marked the end of an offensive that ravaged Gaza and left nearly 1,300 Palestinians dead, more than half of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials and a Palestinian human rights group. Thirteen Israelis also died.
Israel launched the war to halt Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel and to stop arms smuggling, but by Wednesday smuggling was underway again.
The Israeli military announced Wednesday that it would investigate claims by the United Nations and human rights groups that it improperly used white phosphorous -- an ingredient in weapons that inflicts horrific burns.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have accused Israel of committing a war crime by using it in densely populated areas.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon left the region Wednesday after touring Gaza and southern Israel. He called for an investigation into the Israeli shelling of UN compounds in Gaza, which he termed "outrageous." He also called rocket attacks against Israel "appalling and unacceptable."
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni went to Brussels on Wednesday, hoping to clinch a deal committing the European Union to contribute forces, ships and technology to anti-smuggling operations.
"She will sum up with the EU representatives their involvement in the international handling of the problem of smuggling into the Gaza Strip," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.
An EU commitment would build on a deal the United States signed with Israel last week promising expanded intelligence co-operation between the two countries and other U.S. allies in the Middle East and Europe.
EU officials said it was too early for that, saying providing humanitarian relief and efforts to secure a lasting ceasefire were their priorities.
"The situation is fragile," said Javier Solana, the EU's foreign and security chief.
In Washington, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs emphasized that Obama would work to consolidate the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and expressed "his commitment to active engagement in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace from the beginning of his term."
Meanwhile, a Palestinian human rights group said it had completed its count of the death toll from the Israeli operation.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said a total of 1,284 Palestinians were killed and 4,336 wounded in the 23-day Israeli offensive. It said 894 of the dead were civilians, including 280 children or minors ages 17 and under. It cited data collected by its field researchers and checked against information from hospitals and clinics.
The PCHR was a main source of information about dead and wounded during the war.
The Israeli military says 500 Palestinian militants were killed in the fighting. But Palestinian groups say they lost only 158 fighters.
