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Israel has ended its three-day truce with Hamas on Friday only hours after it had begun, saying that it fears an Israeli soldier was captured in Gaza. The peace ended when intense shelling struck southern Gaza, killing several dozens of people in the process.
Hamas had accused Israel of ending the truce, while Israel has said that it was responding to Hamas rocket fire.
US Secretary of State John Kerry had announced the truce overnight, the longest agreement since the conflict started on July 8th. The ceasefire, which began at 0500 GMT, gave brief respite to Palestinians in Gaza from the violence which has caused the deaths of over 1,500 Palestinians, most of them civilians.
However, the peace faded away within hours as heavy shelling resumed in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza.
According to medics, at least 40 people were killed by the strikes, while another 150 were injured. Local sources added that it has been difficult for medics to retrieve the dead and to treat the wounded due to continuous Israeli shelling.
Emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said that at least 1,500 Palestinians have been killed in the past 25 days.
Shortly after the Israeli army had announced that the truce was over, and said that it was looking for an Israeli soldier it feared was captured in Gaza.
“Our initial indications suggest a soldier has been abducted by terrorists in an incident where terrorists breached the ceasefire”, Peter Lerner, spokesman for the Israeli army, said.
He added that the humanitarian ceasefire had come to an end that Israeli soldiers were pressing their “activities on the ground”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office accused Hamas and other groups in Gaza of “flagrantly violating” the ceasefire.
Hamas responded to such accusations, and said that it was “the (Israeli) occupation which violated the ceasefire. The Palestinian resistance acted based on… the right to self-defense”.