The Israeli military said one of its soldiers was captured by Palestinian militants during clashes in southern Gaza as a 72-hour ceasefire that began today quickly unravelled.
The Israeli military said that 90 minutes into the truce — as Palestinian families who had fled neighbourhoods that had been turned into battlefields began to trek home — militants attacked soldiers searching for infiltration tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip.
"Forces [from Israel] operating to decommission an [infiltration] tunnel were attacked. Initial indications are that a soldier has been abducted by terrorists during the operation," Israel Defence Force spokesman Lt.-Col. Peter Lerner said in a conference call with journalists.
There was no immediate word from militant groups on whether any were holding the soldier, identified by the military as 23-year-old Second Lieutenant Hadar Goldin.
Israeli soldiers fired mortars at the central Gaza Strip in the hours before a ceasefire began Friday. Hours after the ceasefire began, the Israeli Defence Force said one of its soldiers may have been captured amid the fighting. (Siegfried Modola/Reuters)
Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for the dominant Hamas movement in Gaza, said Israel was trying to mislead the world and "cover up its Rafah massacre".
Palestinian officials said Israeli shelling killed at least 50 and wounded more than 220 Palestinians in and around Rafah, which lies close to Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt.
The UN's Special Co-ordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry, said in a news release that Israel's military informed him that its soldiers were attacked from a tunnel.
Two Israeli soldiers and a number of Palestinians were killed in the resulting clash, Serry said, but the UN could not independently confirm the reports.
Missing soldier could spark more violence
The UN also issued a statement Friday morning urging both sides to recommit to the ceasefire.
A brief reprieve from intense fighting in Gaza was broken just hours after it began as four Palestinians were killed by Israeli tank shells Friday, according to the Palestinian health authority. (Suhaib Salem/Reuters)
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office condemned Hamas in a statement released Friday, saying it is "solely to blame" for any further loss of life in the conflict.
"Canada is appalled that Hamas, only hours in to the ceasefire, has yet again blatantly violated this agreement by abducting an Israeli soldier," the PMO said its statement on the situation.
"The people of Gaza have suffered greatly under Hamas's reign, and it is high time that their needs are put first over their rulers' blind ambition."
The White House issued a statement saying the reported attack, if proven true, would be a "barbaric" violation of the ceasefire.
The CBC's Nahlah Ayed, reporting from Jerusalem, said the potential kidnapping is a "big deal."
"There's a long history of Israel reacting strongly when its soldiers have been kidnapped," Ayed said.
"The fighting has been bad … but if the Israeli forces are looking for a soldier then it may, in fact, get even worse."
The ceasefire, announced by the U.S. and the UN hours earlier, took effect at 8 a.m. local time Friday after heavy fighting that killed 17 Palestinians and five Israeli soldiers.
Under the ceasefire, Israeli troops on the ground in Gaza can continue to destroy tunnels along the heavily guarded frontier, but only those that are behind Israeli defensive lines and lead into Israel.
Israel and Hamas had otherwise agreed to halt all aggressive operations and conduct only defensive missions. But U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry cautioned there were "no guarantees" that the lull would bring an end to the war, now in its fourth week.
After the Rafah violence, Israel immediately declared the ceasefire over. It also said Gaza militants had fired eight rockets and mortars at Israel since the ceasefire began, one of which was intercepted.
"Once again, Hamas and the terror organizations in Gaza have blatantly broken the ceasefire to which they committed, this time before the American Secretary of State and the UN Secretary General," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement.
Israel launched an aerial campaign against Gaza aimed at halting Palestinian rocket fire on July 8 and later sent in ground troops to target launch sites and tunnels used by Hamas to carry out attacks inside Israel. The war has killed at least 1,496 Palestinians, mainly civilians, and more than 60 Israelis, nearly all soldiers.
Gaza cleanup begins
Soon after the cease-fire went into force, Gaza's residents took advantage of the truce to return to their homes, many of which had been destroyed in the fighting.
Near a main road in the heavily bombarded Gaza district of Shijaiyah, less than a mile from the Israeli border, residents surveyed extensive damage.
Palestinians in Gaza City began efforts to clean up as a 72-hour ceasefire took hold, even as fighting continued in the southern town of Rafah. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters)
Basem Abul Qumbus returned to find his three-story home — in which he had invested tens of thousands of dollars — uninhabitable. Tank shells had punched a hole in the ceiling of one bedroom and a wall had collapsed into the kitchen.
"The work of all those years is gone," he said, as he struggled to salvage flour from bags that had been torn apart by shrapnel. Food supplies are running short in the blockaded coastal territory in the war's fourth week.
In the southern town of Khan Younis, residents searched for bodies in the rubble of their homes as rescuers and volunteers carried away corpses, some charred, on makeshift stretchers.
Nidal Abu Rjeila found the charred body of his disabled sister on the ground on the side of the road, her wheelchair flipped upside down. He said her body had been there for five days.
"I tried to reach human rights groups and the Red Cross, but no one was answering me," he said while lying next to her body.
Diplomatic negotiations to resume in Egypt
Egypt issued a statement early Friday calling on the Western-backed Palestinian Authority and Israel to send negotiation teams to Cairo to discuss "all issues of concern to each party within the framework of the Egyptian initiative."
Egypt had put forth a ceasefire proposal a week after fighting began last month. Israel accepted the proposal, but Hamas, which deeply mistrusts Egypt following last summer's overthrow of an Islamist government in Cairo, rejected it.
Hamas has demanded the lifting of an Israeli and Egyptian border blockade imposed on Gaza in 2007 when the Islamic militant group seized power, as well as the release of Palestinians rounded up in the West Bank in June following the killing of three Israeli teenagers.
In recent weeks Turkey and Qatar, which have warmer ties to Hamas but are at odds with Egypt, have tried to help broker a ceasefire agreement, with no results.
It's not clear whether other nations will attend the Egypt talks, and aides to Kerry said Egypt will ultimately decide who will participate. A Hamas official in Qatar said Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials would be participating. Israel will not meet directly with members of either group because it considers them terrorist organizations.
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