GAZA CITY: A Gaza ceasefire crumbled only hours after it began on Friday, with at least 50 Palestinians killed by Israeli shelling and Israel accusing militants of violating the US and UN-brokered truce by firing rockets and mortars.
Further, an Israeli soldier was apparently captured by Palestinian militants during a clash in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday, an Israeli military spokesman said.
A spokesman for the Israeli military, said that government forces were moving to destroy a tunnel, as the terms of the cease-fire allowed for, when several militants came out of the ground.
He said the militants included at least one suicide attacker, that there was an exchange of fire on the ground and that initial indications were that a soldier was apparently dragged back into the tunnel.
Officials later said that two Israeli soldiers were killed in the gunfight following the soldier’s abduction.
Witnesses in Gaza said that Israel’s bombardment in Rafah began as residents were returning to examine their evacuated homes.
Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra told The AP that in addition to the dead some 200 Palestinians were wounded in the “random” Israeli shelling of the Rafah area in southern Gaza.
He said the death toll could rise as rescue workers continue to search for people buried under the rubble of several apartment blocks hit by shells
The 72-hour break announced by US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was the most ambitious attempt so far to end more than three weeks of fighting, and followed mounting international alarm over a rising Palestinian civilian death toll.
The ceasefire was to be followed by Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in Cairo on a longer-term solution. Israel launched its offensive in Hamas dominated Gaza on July 8, unleashing air and naval bombardments in response to a surge of cross-border rocket attacks.
Tanks and infantry pushed into the territory of 1.8 million on July 17. Gaza officials say at least 1,499 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed and 7,000 wounded. Sixty-one Israeli soldiers have been killed and more than 400 hurt.
Three civilians have been killed by Palestinian rockets in Israel. Some two hours after the truce went into effect, Israeli tanks and artillery opened fire in the southern Rafah area, and a local hospital said 50 people were killed.
The truce left Israeli ground forces in place in the Gaza Strip and a military spokeswoman said operations were continuing to destroy a warren of tunnels through which Hamas has menaced Israels southern towns and army bases.
Hamas, isolated in an Arab world concerned about the rise of militancy, is seeking an end to Israels blockade of Gaza. It also wants a hostile Egypt to ease restrictions at its Rafah crossing with the territory imposed after the military toppled president Mohamed Mursi last July.
Israel has balked at freeing up Gazas borders under any de-escalation deal unless Hamass disarmament is also guaranteed.
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