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 The statement by Hamas's armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, appeared
aimed at preempting any intensification of Israel's 25-day-old
offensive in the Palestinian enclave and deflecting international
blame for the collapse of Friday's ceasefire.
But in a signal the war could wind down, Israel's military said its
objectives, chiefly the destruction of tunnels dug by Hamas for
cross-border attacks, were close to being achieved.
Israel says Hamas gunmen and a suicide bomber stormed out of a
tunnel to ambush its infantrymen in southern Rafah a 9.30 a.m. on
Friday, one and a half hours after the halt to hostilities came into
effect, killing two troops and hauling another, Lieutenant Hadar
Goldin, away through the underground passage.
The incident triggered Israeli shelling of Rafah from the
mid-morning that killed 150 Palestinians. By early afternoon, Israel
declared an end to the truce - which was meant to have lasted 72
hours, allowing humanitarian relief to reach Gaza's 1.8 million
Palestinians and for further de-escalation talks.
Washington accused Hamas of a "barbaric" breach of the deal mediated
by Egypt with the involvement of Turkey, Qatar and U.S.-backed
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The United Nations said it had
not verified the flare-up's causes, but questioned Hamas's truce
commitment and urged Goldin be freed.
Hamas said it did not know what had happened to the soldier but if
he was captured, he probably died in Israeli hostilities that
followed the ambush.
Citing an internal investigation complicated by inability to
communicate with its gunmen in the Rafah area, Hamas's Qassam
Brigades said on Saturday it believed that the ambush took place at
7 a.m. in response to advances by Israeli ground forces.
"We lost contact with the (Hamas) troops deployed in the ambush and
assess that these troops were probably killed by enemy bombardment,
including the soldier said to be missing - presuming that our troops
took him prisoner during the clash," the Brigades said in a
statement.
"The Qassam Brigades has no information as of this time about the
missing soldier, his whereabouts, or the circumstances of his
disappearance."
Quoting an unnamed military officer, Israel Radio also said Goldin's
condition was not known. It said he was last seen next to the two
troops killed by a Hamas suicide bomber - suggesting he may not have
survived either and his captors held a corpse.
TUNNEL HUNT
Israel, with U.S. backing, had said that during any truce its ground
forces would continue hunting cross-border tunnels. More than 30 of
these, and dozens of access shafts, have already been located and
were being blown up, the Israeli military says.
"Our understanding is that our objectives, most importantly the
destruction of the tunnels, are close to completion," a military
spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner, said.
Israel had long voiced concern that Palestinian guerrillas would try
to capture a soldier or civilian. In 2011, Israel released more than
1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit, a soldier
snatched by Hamas five years earlier.
Israel has in the past twice freed prisoners in exchange for the
bodies of soldiers held by Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas.
Hamas, whose gunmen are dispersed for battle in Gaza's battered
districts, often in isolated, dug-in positions, said the continued
maneuvering by Israeli troops was a provocation.
"We informed the mediators who participated in arranging the
humanitarian ceasefire of our agreement to cease fire against
Zionist cities and settlements and that we cannot operationally
cease fire against troops inside the Gaza Strip that conduct
operations and move continuously," the Qassam Brigades said.
"These enemy forces could easily come in contact with our deployed
ambushes, which will lead to a clash."
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Rafah residents said they had received recorded telephone warnings
from Israel to stay indoors during a barrage that wreaked
devastation. Medical officials on Saturday counted at least a dozen
homes destroyed, with the families who lived there each losing
between two and eight members killed. "It was like an action movie
- explosions everywhere, cars flying up in flames, people crushed
under houses that were bombed," local man Bassim Abed told Reuters.
"It was a miracle I escaped the area. It's another miracle I didn't
die of fear."
Ashraf Goma, Palestinian lawmaker from Abbas's Fatah partysaid
50,000 people in villages to the east of the town had been
displaced. He accused Israel of committing a war crime. Israel
launched a Gaza air and naval offensive on July 8 following a surge
of cross-border rocket salvoes by Hamas and other Palestinian
guerrillas, later escalating into ground incursions centered along
the tunnel-riddled eastern frontier of the enclave but often pushing
into residential areas.
Palestinian officials say 1,653 Gazans, mostly civilians, have been
killed. Sixty-three Israeli soldiers have been killed, and
Palestinian shelling has killed three civilians in Israel.
EYES ON EGYPT
Hamas said it launched long-range rockets on Saturday at the Israeli
cities of Haifa and Tel Aviv. There was no word in Israel of Haifa
being struck, but the military said its Iron Dome interceptor had
shot down rockets over Tel Aviv and the southern city of Beersheba.
No one was hurt by the salvo.
 Among targets of Israeli air strikes on Saturday was a building in
the Islamic University campus in Gaza City. The military said the
building had been used by Hamas for weapons research and development
of weapon manufacturing, and that dozens of tunnels and arms caches
had been bombed elsewhere.
After Friday's ceasefire was shattered, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu called his security cabinet into special session
and warned Hamas and other militant groups they would "bear the
consequences of their actions".
Israeli media quoted unnamed government officials as saying
Netanyahu and Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon would hold course in
Gaza - suggesting that rather than escalate, they would stick to a
tunnel-hunt the military predicts could be over within days.
Egypt was due to host a Palestinian delegation later on Saturday to
try to salvage the truce. Israeli envoys had also been expected in
Cairo at the weekend, but Netanyahu government officials did not
immediately say whether they would still go.
"The Egyptian initiative is a real chance to find a real solution to
the crisis taking place in the Gaza Strip," President Abdel Fattah
al-Sisi told reporters. "Lost time ... complicates the situation
more and more."
Hamas is seeking an end to Israel's blockade of Gaza. It also wants
a hostile Egypt to ease restrictions at its Rafah crossing with the
territory.
In a boost to Israel, the U.S. Congress approved $225 million in
emergency funding for Iron Dome.
(Writing by Dan Williams; Additional reporting by Mostafa Hashem and
Oliver Holmes in Cairo; Editing by Giles Elgood)
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