Israel has begun withdrawing troops that had been poised to invade the Gaza Strip.
Dust-covered tanks and armoured bulldozers were winched onto transporters and driven out of the groves of eucalyptus where they have been since going in to Gaza in January 2009.
Over the past week, about 56,000 reserve soldiers had been called up. And the total cost of the 8 day military operation is estimated at about 3 billion Israeli shekels, or about 0.1 percent of the country’s GDP.