An Israeli soldier is missing following a deadly battle in the Gaza Strip, a defense official said Tuesday as Israeli forces continued their air, land and sea offensive against Hamas.
On Sunday evening, Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri in Gaza claimed his group had captured an Israeli soldier, a claim Israel initially denied. An announcement on Gaza TV of the soldier's capture set off celebration in the streets of the West Bank.
Several media sites are reporting that the IDF identified the missing soldier as 21-year-old Oron Shaul from Poria. According to media reports, the IDF says Shaul is likely dead, but his family is holding out hope until definitive evidence is found.
"As far as we are concerned, as long as the examinations are not completed, as long as the IDF is still working and there are no conclusive findings on the issue – as far as the family is concerned Oron is not dead," said Rachel Gazit, a Shaul family spokesperson.
The development adds a further complication to international efforts to broker a truce to end more than two weeks of fighting that has killed at least 585 Palestinians and 29 Israelis.
Israel has said its campaign, launched July 8, is aimed at stopping Hamas rocket fire into Israel — some 2,000 rockets have been launched over the past two weeks, the military says — and destroying tunnels the military says Hamas has constructed from Gaza into Israel for attacks against Israelis.
"A vehicle carrying 7 soldiers was attacked July 20," the Israeli Defense Forces announced via their official Twitter account, earlier this morning, regarding the missing solider. "We have identified 6 of their bodies. Efforts to identify the 7th soldier are ongoing."
Israel feels a strong need not to leave any of its soldiers behind, including the remains of dead ones, and has engaged in lopsided prisoner swaps with its foes to bring home captured soldiers. In 2008, Israel released five Lebanese militants in exchange for the remains of two soldiers killed in the 2006 Lebanon war.
Also in 2006, Hamas-allied militants seized an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid and held him captive in Gaza until Israel traded more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom were involved in grisly killings, for his return in 2011.
Hamas had threatened in the past to kidnap more Israelis and Israel says the militant group's attacks through tunnels that stretch into Israel are for this purpose.
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