The deposed Hamas government opened the first police academy in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, nearly a year after Israel staged a three-week military operation against the territory.

Senior officials of the sacked Hamas government in Gaza attended the opening ceremony of the police academy, which recruits 200 students as the first batch.

Once they graduate, they would be the newest police forces of Hamas since it took over Gaza in June 2007 from its rival Fatah, loyal to the Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas.

"The Palestinian resistance could jump over the blockade and is now making its weapons by its own, defying the Israeli occupation, " said Fathi Hammad, the interior minister, at the opening ceremony.

Egypt and Israel maintained a tight closure on their borders with Gaza, making it impossible for Hamas to send police students abroad for advanced training.

Hammad said 250 members of the Hamas security forces were killed at the start of the Israeli offensive in December 2008.

The opening of the academy, located in an area that Abbas used as an office and residence before he lost Gaza, came as Gazans are marking the first anniversary of the war which ended on January 18.

The war left some 1,400 Palestinians, about two-thirds of whom civilians and 13 Israelis dead.

(Xinhua News Agency January 1, 2010)