Israeli steps up Gaza attack after soldier kidnapped

More than 60 Palestinians killed in shelling of Rafah as 72-hour ceasefire brokered by US and UN fails after two hours, with Israel and Hamas blaming each other.

A wounded Palestinian woman arrives at Al Najar hospital in the southern Gaza strip after Israeli shelling of Rafah on August 1, 2014. Said Khatib / AFP
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GAZA CITY // Israeli forces, backed by heavy tank fire and airstrikes, moved deeper into southern Gaza late on Friday in search of a soldier apparently captured in a clash with Hamas militants earlier in the day.

At least 62 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed in the fierce fighting that quickly shattered the 72-hour ceasefire.

In Gaza’s southern Rafah area, the military urged residents in phone calls to stay indoors as troops advanced.

“We are under fire. Every minute or so, tanks fire shells,” said Ayman Al Arja, 45, a resident.

Israel and Hamas accused each other of breaking the ceasefire, which had been announced by the United States and the United Nations and took effect at 8am. The fighting broke out less than two hours later.

The breakdown of the ceasefire and the apparent capture of the Israeli soldier in the southern town of Rafah sets the stage for a major escalation of the 25-day-old conflict, which has already killed at least 1,500 Palestinians, mostly civilians.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told the US secretary of state John Kerry that Palestinian militants had “unilaterally and grossly” violated the ceasefire and attacked Israeli soldiers after 9am. The Israeli cabinet held a rare session after the start of the Jewish Sabbath on Friday evening to weigh its options.

However, Moussa Abu Marzouk, Hamas’ deputy leader, told Al Arabiya news channel from Cairo that the movement’s military wing carried no military operations after the truce came into force.

If confirmed, the capture of the soldier could dramatically change the trajectory of the conflict. Any ceasefire efforts would likely be put on hold and Israel might instead expand its ground operation.

Fearing an escalation of violence in Gaza, Mr Kerry called on Turkey and Qatar on Friday to use their influence to secure the release of the Israeli soldier.

Mr Kerry called the Qatari and Turkish foreign ministers while flying back from a visit to India, from where he had continued to work on brokering the failed ceasefire.

“We have urged them, implored them to use their influence to try to get the release of that soldier,” a senior State Department official said. “Absent that, the risk of this continuing to escalate, leading to further loss of life, is high.”

Israel has in the past gone to great lengths to return captured soldiers. In 2011, it traded hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier who had been captured by Hamas-allied militants in 2006.

Israel had already said it would continue demolishing cross-border tunnels behind its own defensive lines during the ceasefire, and the military said its troops were attacked during one such operation.

The Israeli army spokesman, Lt Col Peter Lerner, said an hour after the ceasefire started, gunmen emerged from one or more tunnel openings and opened fire, with at least one of them detonating an explosives vest.

He said 2nd Lt Hadar Goldin, a 23-year-old from the central town of Kfar Saba, was apparently captured during the ensuing mayhem and taken back into Gaza through a tunnel, while another two soldiers were killed.

A Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, would neither confirm nor deny the capture, saying it was being used – along with news that two Israeli soldiers were killed in the Rafah area – as a cover for a “massacre” that ensued.

The Israeli military said the heavy shelling in Rafah was part of operational and intelligence activity designed to locate Goldin.

The shelling in Rafah sent families fleeing from apartment blocks as pillars of smoke caused by the shelling rose from them.

Ambulances ferried the wounded to Rafah’s Al Najar hospital, where bloodied bodies on stretchers were carried inside and family members frantically searched for loved ones. Many of the wounded were children. In one hospital room, four children were treated on a single bed. Others were being examined on the floor.

The shelling killed at least 62 Palestinians and wounded 250 in Rafah, Gaza health official Ashraf Al Qedra said. He said the death toll could rise as rescue workers search for people buried under the rubble. He did not say whether those killed were civilians or militants.

Another four people were killed in tank shelling of Khan Yunis, also in southern Gaza, Mr Qedra said.

Israel says 63 of its soldiers and three civilians in Israel have been killed since it launched its offensive on Gaza on July 8 to stop rocket fire from the territory and destroy tunnels used by Hamas to carry out attacks inside Israel.

Four brief humanitarian cease-fires had been announced since the conflict began, but each broke within a few hours. The Israeli military said Gaza militants had fired at least 23 rockets and mortars at Israel since the start of Friday’s ceasefire, one of which was intercepted.

The latest ceasefire, announced by Mr Kerry and UN chief Ban Ki-moon, was intended to be the first step toward a lasting truce, with Egypt inviting Israeli and Palestinian delegations to Cairo for talks.

Mr Ban has also demanded that the captured Israeli soldier be released immediately and condemned “in the strongest terms” the reported ceasefire violation by Hamas.

Mr Ban was “shocked and profoundly disappointed” by the renewed violence and warned that if reports of the attack on Israeli soldiers were confirmed “this would constitute a grave violation of the ceasefire”, his spokesman said.

“Such moves call into question the credibility of Hamas’s assurances to the United Nations.”

The US president, Barack Obama, also called for the unconditional release of the soldier, saying it would be “very hard to put a ceasefire back together again if Israelis and the international community can’t feel confident that Hamas will follow through”.

Mr Obama also

Despite the collapse of the truce, an Egyptian government official said Cairo had not cancelled its invitation for Palestinians and Israelis to hold talks there.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said a joint Palestinian delegation, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, will travel to Cairo on Saturday for ceasefire talks despite the renewed fighting.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians during separate clashes in the West Bank on Friday, security and medical sources said.

Tamer Smour, 22, was hit by a live bullet in the chest in the city of Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, where “1,200 rioters” had been hurling “rocks and Molotov cocktails at troops and at an industrial centre in the vicinity, endangering workers and passers-by”, the Israeli army said.

In a separate clash in Saffa village, west of Ramallah, 19-year-old Udai Nafez was killed in a clash with Israeli forces, medical sources said.

The Ramallah governmental hospital said he was shot in the chest.

The Israeli army had no immediate comment on the Saffa incident.

The Red Crescent said 73 Palestinians were wounded by live ammunition and rubber bullets fired by Israeli forces during Friday clashes throughout the West Bank, including in the cities of Bethlehem and Hebron and near Ramallah.

In east Jerusalem, Israeli police arrested two Palestinians during a clash outside the Old City after Friday prayers.

* Associated Press with aditional reporting by Agence France-Presse and Reuters