Tweets of birds can be heard and only a few cars drove peacefully in Abed Rabbo quarter east of Jabalia town in northern Gaza Strip, a former battlefield between Gaza militants and Israeli troops in a December-January war.

"Militants are not coming here anymore to fire rockets at Israel, and Israeli jets, drones and helicopters are not hovering over our heads after every launch of rocket," said Mohamed Abed Rabbo, a 46-year-old resident of the area. "As you see, it is completely quiet now."

He kept silent for a while and then said, "look at the destruction here, all these homes were destroyed during the war, I hope that the calm will last forever, and the unfair siege will be lifted to allow construction materials in to rebuild our homes. There is nothing nicer than peace."

On January 18, Israel ended a 22-day harsh military offensive on the impoverished Gaza Strip controlled by the Islamic Hamas movement. After that, both practices an unannounced ceasefire.

The al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas armed wing and Saraya al-Quds, Islamic Jihad movement's armed wing, have completely stopped rockets firing at Israel since the end of the war.

The two radical groups instead, said their leaders, adopted a new strategy in Gaza as "the culture of resistance."

The Hamas movement recently carried out a series of cultural and social activities, mainly summer camps for children, plays for theaters, a television drama and a two-hour film that was just produced.

On Thursday, Hamas arranged a mass wedding ceremony in northern Gaza Strip, the area which witnessed furious Israeli attacks over the past several years. 800 couples gathered at the biggest ceremony held in the Gaza Strip ever.

During the wedding ceremony, Hamas strongman in Gaza Mahmoud al-Zahar told the crowd "the Palestinian people are determined to setup their weddings in spite of losing so many martyrs during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip. Hamas seeks to draw a smile on our people's faces."

Ibrahim Salah, chief of the committee that organized the mass wedding ceremony said that Hamas movement paid US$500 each as a present to the newly married couples. Many of the brides had lost their husbands during the Israeli war on Gaza, in which altogether more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed.

Ayman Taha, a senior political leader and former Hamas militant, told Xinhua that "the armed resistance in Hamas concepts is still legal and essential, but now we are encouraging culture and carry out social activities that keep the movement's popular support."

"The current situation urges us to stop firing rockets because after the long war on Gaza, all fighters became in need for rest, and the people also need calm and rest," said Taha.

Some other leaders in Gaza also said their armed groups re-organized itself and learned lessons from the last large-scale war on Gaza, saying the decision to halt firing dozens of short-range Qassam rockets at Israel on daily bases came after the population's pressure on the militants.

The Israeli army said that in June and July, only four homemade rockets were fired from Gaza at Israel, causing no damages or harms, compared with dozens of rockets fired on daily basis in the period before and during the offensive on Gaza.

But still, Israel says Hamas is using the period of calm to rebuild its military power which was badly damaged during the war.

Experts however believed that Hamas intends to change its militant image held in the West.

"Hamas leaders are apparently trying to change the image of Hamas in the minds of the West leaders, who still consider Hamas as a terrorist organization," said Ra'ed Aafana, a Palestinian academic specialized in Middle East studies in Gaza.

He said there are moderate Hamas leaders who want to send a message to Europe and the new US Administration that "Hamas is not just a group of terrorists, Hamas is a popular movement that practices social and cultural activities and even wants to be part of any future permanent peace agreement."

"We are not terrorists, but we are fighters. We just want to show reality to the world. We want all the world's intellectuals and writers to come here to the Gaza Strip to see how the people are living their daily life," Hamas Minister of Culture Osama al-Essawi said.

"Carrying out social and cultural activities is also part of the struggle against the occupation, and this is what we are trying to do," said al-Essawi.

(Xinhua News Agency August 2, 2009)