In the Rafah refugee camp, perhaps hardest hit by the violence, Palestinian police raised a flag atop a badly damaged house near an Israeli military patrol road on the border with Egypt.
"It's great that [the policemen] are here. Maybe now they can stop the fighters from shooting at the Israelis, and the Israelis from shooting at us," said Sakhri Abu Tiyour, 48, who as seen two of his 12 children seriously wounded by army fire and his house leveled by an army bulldozer. On Jan. 21, Palestinian police fanned out across northern Gaza with the same security mission, and since then, there have been few violent incidents there.
The police deployment was accompanied by a decree banning Palestinian civilians from holding weapons, in a nod to demands by Israel and the US that militants, responsible for killing more than 1,000 Israelis, must be disarmed.
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