An Israeli soldier is missing following a deadly battle in the Gaza Strip, a defence official told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
It was not clear if the soldier was dead or alive. The development adds a potential complication to intensive diplomatic efforts meant to end more than two weeks of fighting between Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers that has killed at least 570 Palestinians and 29 Israelis.
The defence official said the soldier went missing after a deadly battle in Gaza over the weekend and it was not immediately clear if he was dead or alive. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the incident with the media.
Israeli media, meanwhile, said the soldier went missing while he was travelling in an armoured personnel carrier that came under attack over the weekend in Gaza City's Shijaiyah neighbourhood, which Israel says is a major source for rocket fire against its civilians.
Palestinians take cover as warning Israeli airstrikes are fired at a nearby building in Gaza City on Tuesday. (Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters)
The reports, which were not confirmed by the military, did not say if the soldier was dead or alive. Some media said the soldier was likely dead.
Military spokesman Peter Lerner said on Twitter that out of seven Israeli soldiers attacked on Sunday, Israel has been able to identify six.
Hamas earlier this week claimed it had captured an Israeli soldier. Israel's UN ambassador initially denied the claim but the military neither confirmed nor denied it.
In the past Israel has paid a heavy price to retrieve its soldiers — dead or alive — captured by its enemies.
For Israelis, a captured soldier would be a nightmare scenario. Hamas-allied militants seized an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid in 2006 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.
Israel bombed five mosques, a sports stadium and the home of the late Hamas military chief across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, a Gaza police official said, as the UN chief and the U.S. secretary of state launched a high-level effort to end two weeks of deadly fighting.
Airstrikes set off huge explosions that turned the night sky over Gaza City orange. The sound of the blasts mixed with the thud of shelling, often just seconds apart, and the predawn call to prayer from mosque loudspeakers.
The unusually intense Israeli strikes came as UN chief Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met in Cairo to launch the highest-level push yet to end two weeks of Israel-Hamas fighting.
The UN has said a majority of the Palestinians killed were civilians, among them dozens of children. In Israel, the army said two more soldiers were killed in clashes with Hamas fighters, bringing the number of troops killed since July 8 to 27. Two Israeli civilians have also been killed.
Early Tuesday, Israeli aircraft hit more than 70 targets in the Gaza Strip, including the home of the late leader of Hamas' military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, five mosques and a football stadium, said Gaza police spokesman Ayman Batniji.
Batniji said tank shells damaged several houses along the eastern border of the territory and that at least 19 fishing boats were burned by Israeli navy shells fired from the Mediterranean.
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