Wounded Palestinian children arrive at al-Najar hospital in the southern part of Gaza following an Israeli airstrike on Friday. A ceasefire crumbled only hours after it began. -- UPI
AFP
A humanitarian truce in Gaza collapsed only hours after it began on Friday amid a deadly new wave of violence and the apparent capture by Hamas of an Israeli soldier.
Intensive shelling killed dozens of people in southern Gaza hours into the truce, which began at 8.00 am (0500 GMT) and was due to last 72 hours.
But the ceasefire was short-lived, with Hamas accusing Israel of breaking it and the Jewish state saying it was responding to militant rocket fire.
With Israel's security cabinet reported to be meeting later Friday, the chances of a durable truce seemed as remote as ever after the probable capture of Israeli Second Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, 23.
The military also announced that two soldiers had been killed in the same incident near the southern city of Rafah.
"Our initial indications suggest a soldier has been abducted by terrorists in an incident where terrorists breached the ceasefire," according to army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner.
He said a suicide bomber blew himself up, adding that first reports "indicate that a soldier was seized".
In 2006, militants from Gaza captured Israeli conscript Gilad Shalit and held him for five years before freeing him in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Friday's short truce gave brief respite to people in the battered Strip from fighting that has killed more than 1,500 on the Palestinian side, mostly civilians, and 63 Israeli soldiers and three civilians on the other.
Within hours, air raid sirens were heard on the Israeli side, and heavy shelling resumed in Rafah, killing at least 62 people and wounding more than 350, medics said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office accused Hamas and other Gaza militants of "flagrantly violating" the ceasefire.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum riposted that "it is the (Israeli) occupation which violated the ceasefire. The Palestinian resistance acted based on... the right to self defence."
Netanyahu's office said the premier spoke to US Secretary of State John Kerry by phone and said the Palestinians "unilaterally and grossly violated the humanitarian ceasefire and attacked our soldiers after 09.00".
It said Netanyahu warned that Hamas and "the other terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip will bear the consequences of their actions".
Washington blamed Hamas for the breakdown of the ceasefire and accused it of launching a "barbaric" attack to capture the Israeli soldier.
"This is an outrageous action and we look to the rest of the world to join us in condemning it," White House Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken told MSNBC television.
Kerry demanded that Hamas "immediately and unconditionally release the missing Israeli soldier", as did UN chief Ban Ki-moon.
The army warned people in Gaza to remain at home, saying in voice messages to mobile phones that it was "pursuing terrorist elements in Rafah".
Kerry had said that once the ceasefire was under way, Israeli and Palestinian representatives, including from Hamas, would begin talks in Cairo on a more durable truce.
In a speech published after the ceasefire broke down, Saudi King Abdullah denounced "inexcusable" world silence over Israel's "war crimes" in Gaza.
"We see the blood of our brothers in Palestine being shed in collective massacres, that have spared nobody, and in war crimes against humanity... all taking place under the eyes and ears of the international community... that has stood indifferently watching events in the whole region," he said.
"This silence is inexcusable" and will "result in a generation that rejects peace and believes only in violence," he said.
