Jan 19 (Reuters) - Palestinians took stock on Monday of the devastation from a three-week war in the Gaza Strip as a ceasefire took hold and Israeli forces pressed on with their gradual withdrawal from the Hamas-ruled territory.

Here is a timeline of events since a six-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip ended last month.

Dec. 19, 2008 - Ceasefire expires.

Dec. 24 - Gaza Palestinian militants fire rockets at Israel.

Dec. 27 - Israel launches air strikes on Gaza, killing at least 229 Palestinians.

Dec. 28 - Israeli air strikes hit the Islamic University and target smuggling tunnels in the Gaza Strip.

Dec. 31 - Emergency U.N. Security Council session on Arab resolution calling for ceasefire adjourns without a vote.

Jan. 1, 2009 - Israel kills Nizar Rayyan, a hardline Hamas leader, in an air attack on his Gaza Strip home.

Jan. 3 - Israel launches a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, sending tanks and infantry into battle with Hamas.

Jan. 4 - Israelis cut the strip in half from the border fence to the Mediterranean. Troops and armour ring Gaza City.

Jan. 5 - French President Nicolas Sarkozy, on a peace mission, and U.S. President George W. Bush, call for ceasefire.

Jan. 6 - Israeli shelling kills 42 Palestinians at a U.N. school in Jabalya refugee camp where civilians had sheltered.

-- Egypt, backed by France and other European powers, proposes an immediate ceasefire.

Jan. 8 - Rockets fired from Lebanon strike northern Israel, wounding two people.

-- The U.N. Security Council votes for a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, but the United States abstains, citing Egyptian-mediated talks on a truce.

-- The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which distributes the majority of aid in Gaza, suspends its operations after an Israeli tank shell kills an UNRWA driver in a convoy.

Jan. 9 - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejects the U.N. resolution as "unworkable" and, noting Palestinians fired rockets at Israel, says the army will go on defending Israelis.

Jan. 10 - Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal accuses Israel of perpetrating a "holocaust" in Gaza and says his group will not consider a ceasefire until Israel ends its assault.

-- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meets Mubarak in Cairo. Egypt says it will not accept foreign troops on its side of the border with Gaza to stop arms smuggling.

Jan. 11 - Israeli forces edge into the Gaza Strip's most populous area, throwing army reservists into battle.

-- Israel says stopping arms smuggling from Egypt to the Gaza Strip should be done by Egyptian forces and rejects the idea of an international force.

Jan. 12 - Olmert, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni decide against ordering troops in to engage in all-out urban warfare.

Jan. 13 - Hamas says it has "substantial observations" about an Egyptian ceasefire proposal.

Jan. 14 - Rockets fired from Lebanon strike Israel for the second time in a week.

-- U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrives in Cairo and calls again for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

-- A Hamas delegation is holding talks with Egyptian intelligence officials on an Egyptian initiative, but Hamas has said changes to the Egyptian proposals are needed.

-- Human Rights Watch says Israel's daily three-hour break in attacks to facilitate the supply of humanitarian aid to Gazans is "woefully insufficient".

Jan. 15 - Israeli forces push deeper into Gaza city unleashing their heaviest shelling in three weeks of war.

-- An Israeli envoy is to meet Egyptian mediators in Cairo after a Hamas delegation ends talks on Egyptian truce proposal.

-- UNRWA says its compound is struck twice by Israeli fire and three staff members are injured.

-- Ban tells Israel the death toll from fighting has reached an "unbearable point".

Jan. 17 - Israel declares unilateral ceasefire with effect from 0000 GMT. Hamas guerrillas say the war will go on.

Jan. 18 - Hamas announces a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

-- There is shooting from both sides after the declarations, but the ceasefire appears to gain strength and Israeli troops begin pulling out of Gaza.

Jan. 19 - Israeli forces press on with a gradual withdrawal.

-- A spokesman for Hamas's armed wing vows to replenish its arsenal of rockets and other weapons.

-- A source in the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip said 5,000 homes, 16 government buildings and 20 mosques were destroyed and 20,000 houses damaged in the three-week war.

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