Gaza Cease-fire Collapses; Israeli Soldier Feared Captured
The Israeli military says one of its soldiers has been captured by militants in the Gaza Strip, where a temporary cease-fire collapsed just hours after it began Friday.
The presumed abduction occurred in the southern city of Rafah at about 9:30 a.m. local time, 90 minutes after the humanitarian truce between Israel and Hamas took effect.
Israel Defense Forces identified the missing soldier as 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin, 23. A spokesman said the military is conducting an extensive search for Goldin.
Goldin was reportedly taken, and two other Israeli troops were killed, during an operation to find and destroy tunnels used by militants to infiltrate Israel.
The Israeli military said a firefight with militants broke out, with a suicide bombing adding to the mayhem. Several Palestinians were also killed.
Shortly after the attack, the Israeli military resumed shelling the southern Gaza Strip, killing at least 40 people, according to various reports. Hamas resumed firing rockets into southern Israel.
Israel declared the cease-fire over hours after it began. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office released a statement blaming Gaza militants for “flagrantly” violating what was supposed to be a three-day cease-fire, though it did not elaborate. Israeli media later reported that the military had resumed its offensive operations in Gaza.
The United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Robert Serry, said in a statement that if reports of the tunnel attack are corroborated, “this would constitute a serious violation of the humanitarian cease-fire … by Gazan militant factions, which should be condemned in the strongest terms.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who with U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon had announced the 72-hour cease-fire late Thursday, in a statement Friday decried its “outrageous violation” and called for the missing soldier’s immediate release.
“After the horrific loss of life in this attack and its aftermath, it would be a tragedy if this outrageous attack leads to more suffering and loss of life on both sides of this conflict,” Kerry said. He called upon the international community to “redouble its efforts to end the tunnel and rocket attacks by Hamas terrorists on Israel and the suffering and loss of civilian life.”
Kerry has appealed to Qatar and Turkey in particular to help in freeing the soldier, Reuters reported.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators had planned to meet in Egypt during the cease-fire to hammer out a more enduring calm and to address issues underlying the conflict. Egyptian officals said the invitation still stood, Reuters reported Friday.
Some Palestinian representatives have sought postponing negotiations to the weekend, meanwhile hoping for a truce, Reuters reported. It said the Palestinian delegation would include representatives of Hamas, Western-backed Fatah, the Islamic Jihad militant groups and others.
A senior official traveling with Kerry in India said several other U.S. diplomats were expected to arrive in Cairo on Friday and Saturday, Reuters said.
Positions hardened
VOA correspondent Scott Bobb, who is in Gaza, said both sides are hardening their positions and there is no end in sight to the fighting.
“Hamas continues to insist on a complete end to the [economic] blockade before it will consider a formal, official cease-fire,” he said. “And Israel insists on the demilitarization of Gaza before it will consider lifting any blockade. So at the moment, there is no cease-fire.”
Since Israel began its offensive July 8 to halt Hamas rockets being fired into the Jewish state, at least 1,509 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have died, Gaza officials said, according to Reuters. Israel has lost 63 soldiers and three civilians.
Israeli leaders want the demilitarization of Hamas, which has sent thousands of rockets into Israeli territory in recent weeks. The Islamist group wants an end to the Israeli-led blockade that has strangled Gaza’s economy and prevented Gazans from traveling.
Violence before truce
In the hours before the cease-fire took effect Friday, Gaza police reported heavy Israeli tank shelling in northern and eastern Gaza, and the loud exchange of fire between Israeli troops and militants was audible throughout Gaza City. Tank shells landed on homes in the city, setting homes and shops ablaze.
Hamas fighters hit an Israeli tank with an anti-tank missile, Gaza police said, and then attacked Israeli troops who came to evacuate the tank crew. Clashes continued into the early morning hours, police said.
Just after the truce began, Bobb saw “small traffic jams in the city as people rush out to buy supplies and visit the homes they abandoned days or weeks ago.”
At a depot selling cooking gas, “literally hundreds of canisters [were] lined up waiting to be filled,” he said. This was the first depot to reopen. Others, located to the east near the conflict zone, are considered too dangerous to reopen.
Bobb said some stores and restaurants had reopened. “People are out in the streets today,” he reported. “For the first time, I saw children playing in the ocean, on the beach.
“And fishermen have gone out, although they stay within about a hundred meters off-shore,” after 3 1/2 weeks without work, Bobb said.
Note : VOA’s Scott Bobb contributed to this report from the Gaza Strip. Reuters, AFP and the Associated Press also contributed.
