ISRAELI troops were hunting last night for a soldier who is thought to have been kidnapped after a Palestinian ambush on a military post near the Gaza border that left two other soldiers dead.

Corporal Gilad Shalit was abducted when Palestinians, including Hamas members, launched a pre-dawn raid on Kerem Shalom beside southern Gaza, emerging from a tunnel to hurl bombs and grenades at the base.

The Israeli Government held the Hamas-led Government responsible for the first such attack since Israel withdrew from Gaza last summer, and the security Cabinet met last night to consider its response.

The raid, which used a secret tunnel bored from inside Gaza to 300m (980ft) beyond the Israeli fence that seals off the Palestinian strip, also left two Palestinian fighters dead. It triggered a brief Israeli incursion into the strip.

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, issued a thinly veiled threat against the Palestinian Authority, making no distinction between the new Hamas-led Government and President Mahmoud Abbas. “We in Israel view the Palestinian Authority, headed by Chairman Abu Mazen [Mr Abbas] and the Palestinian Government, responsible for this incident, with all that implies,” Mr Olmert said.

Ghazi Hamad, a spokesman for the Hamas-led Government, denied all knowledge of the kidnapped soldier. “We appeal to all the resistance factions if they have the kidnapped soldier to preserve his life and treat him well,” he said.

He added that the Government was talking to President Abbas, the Egyptians and other parties to resolve the issue.

Shalit, 19, from Mitzpe Hila, is the first Israeli soldier to be kidnapped since 20-year-old Corporal Nachshon Wachsman was snatched by Hamas in October 1994 north of Jerusalem. He was killed in a raid mounted to free him.

Brigadier-General Aviv Kochavi, head of the Gaza Division, described the apparently well-planned assault as a “complex” operation.

“They divided into three cells. One attacked an armoured personnel carrier. The APC was empty. Another group attacked a tank with grenades . . . causing two deaths and one serious injury,” he said.

The raid was claimed as a joint operation by the People’s Resistance Committees, the previously unknown Army of Islam — thought to be a PRC splinter group — and Hamas’s armed wing. They said that it was retaliation for Israel’s assassination on June 8 of Jamal Abu Samadhana, the PRC leader, and the deaths of seven members of a single family on a Gaza beach during Israeli shelling. Israel denies responsibility.

The Hamas Deputy Prime Minister, Nasser Shaer, made a direct appeal for the soldier’s release last night, but the call was rejected.

Israeli troops mounted a ground assault on the outskirts of Gaza, with tanks rolling half a mile into the strip while helicopter gunships fired into open fields. The Israeli Defence Forces said that it was designed to destroy the tunnel.

The attack strains to breaking point the tattered ceasefire observed by Hamas for 16 months until it restarted launching rockets into Israel after the recent beach deaths.Yesterday’s violence embarrassed Mr Abbas, coming as he held talks with Hamas to persuade it to give up attacks.

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