No Israeli soldier kidnapped in Gaza, says Israel's UN envoy
Hamas's armed wing said on Sunday it had captured an Israeli soldier, as fighting in Gaza led to the bloodiest losses in a nearly two-week military offensive, with some 100 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers killed.
Israel's UN Ambassador Ron Prosor said on Sunday there was no kidnapped Israeli soldier, dismissing a televised announcement in the Gaza Strip from Hamas's armed wing that it had captured an Israeli soldier during the fighting in Shejaia.
"There's no kidnapped Israeli soldier and those rumors are untrue," Prosor told reporters at the United Nations as the Security Council held an emergency meeting on the escalating crisis between Israel and Palestinians.
Hamas's armed wing said on Sunday it had captured an Israeli soldier, as fighting in Gaza led to the bloodiest losses in a nearly two-week military offensive, with some 100 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers killed.
"Qassam Brigades captured a Zionist soldier," said Abu Ubaida, the masked spokesman of the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, who identified the soldier as Shaul Aron and recited what he said was Aron's identity tag number.
He provided no other evidence the soldier was in the custody of the Islamist militants.
Ubaida said the capture happened during the same battle in which 13 Israeli soldiers died earlier, near Shejaia, the embattled neighborhood east of the city of Gaza where most of the Palestinian casualties occurred on Sunday.