Twelve hours after the Israeli Army began a desperate search for what it feared was an abducted soldier, it said late Thursday that it had ruled out any such possibility.
“The special operations room has been closed and all roadblocks have been removed,” a military spokeswoman said. “Both the army and the Shin Bet have ruled out any kidnapping. There is still an investigation under way to understand what happened.” Shin Bet is Israel’s internal security agency.
At noon, an Israeli soldier contacted the army and said that while she was getting off a bus she saw two civilians forcing a soldier into a vehicle. Roads around Ben Gurion airport and into and out of the occupied West Bank were subject to roadblocks and inspections.
A previously unknown group calling itself Al-Quds Army told the Palestinian news agency Maan that it had grabbed an Israeli soldier, saying, “A group of our resistance fighters captured a Zionist soldier near Ben Gurion airport and withdrew along with the soldier peacefully.”
The report led the nightly news in a country where most people serve in the army and that places special store in its willingness to go to great lengths to protect its men and women in uniform.
Kidnappings of soldiers are rare and have proved traumatic.
In June 2006, Hamas guerrillas from Gaza seized Cpl. Gilad Shalit near the border. His picture is plastered across the country. Negotiations for his release, involving the possible freeing of hundreds of Hamas prisoners in exchange, seem to be reaching a new intensity.
It was shortly after his capture that Hezbollah carried out a cross-border raid from Lebanon to kill and seize soldiers, an event that led to a monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah.
In 1994, Cpl. Nachshon Wachsman was kidnapped by Hamas in central Israel and held for six days before an attempted rescue by the Israeli military ended in his killing by his captors.
Both he and Corporal Shalit were promoted to sergeant.
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