Missing Israeli soldier still alive: Hamas-linked agency

GAZA CITY, Palestine

A news agency close to Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has suggested that an Israeli soldier who went missing during Israel’s 2014 war on Gaza is still alive -- despite earlier Israeli claims that he had been killed in battle.

On Monday, the Gaza-based SAFA news agency quoted an anonymous source as saying Oron Shaul had "fainted" when he learned about the death of his father, who passed away Friday after a long struggle with illness.

Shaul, a soldier in the Israeli army, went missing during Israel’s weeks-long onslaught against the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014.

On July 20, 2014, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades -- Hamas’ armed wing -- announced that it had captured Shaul in Gaza City’s eastern Shajaiyya district.

Israeli officials, for their part, claimed Shaul had been killed in the fighting in Gaza and that Hamas was holding his dead body.

It remains unclear until now whether the soldier is alive or dead.

Monday’s report by SAFA was the first time for a source close to Hamas to suggest that Shaul was in fact still alive.

Aside from the quote by the anonymous source, the news agency provided no further details.

Hundreds of Israelis took part in the elder Shaul’s funeral on Sunday evening, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Israeli Army Chief-of-Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot.

In a speech delivered at the funeral, Aviram Shaul, the missing soldier's brother, appeared to question the official Israeli narrative regarding Oron’s fate.

"My father died of regret after the Israeli government forced him to believe his son had been killed in the war," he was quoted as saying.

Israel's 2014 onslaught against the Hamas-run Gaza Strip left some 2,150 Palestinians dead and thousands of others injured -- mostly civilians -- while leaving much of the enclave’s vital infrastructure in ruins.

According to Israeli figures, at least 70 Israelis -- 65 soldiers and five civilians -- were killed during the conflict.