Israel declared an end to a three-day Gaza truce only hours after it began Friday, saying it fears one of its soldiers was captured as intensive shelling killed dozens of people in southern Gaza hours into the short-lived truce.

Hamas accused Israel of breaking the ceasefire as Tel Aviv said it was responding to rocket fire.

Friday's disappearance of an Israeli soldier, apparently captured in Gaza, has echoes of the June 2006 seizure of conscript Gilad Shalit who was held by Palestinian militants for five years.

On June 25, 2006, the then 19-year-old Shalit was captured after militants tunneled under Gaza's border and attacked an army post, killing two soldiers and seriously wounding a third.

After bombardment gutted his home in central Gaza, Nidal al-Khaldi says he has nothing left to lose and will support the "resistance" against Israel even if it means more vicious fighting.

"This war will continue!" he declares, standing by the ruins of his house in al-Bureij district during a temporary lull in fighting Friday between Israel and Gaza's militants.

Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians during separate clashes in the northern and central West Bank on Friday, security and medical sources told Agence France-Presse.

Palestinian security sources said Tamer Smour, 22, was hit by a live bullet in the chest in the city of Tulkarem in the northern West Bank.

A suspect who was arrested on suspicion of firing rockets against Israel was released from custody on Friday, reported the National News Agency.

It said that Sheikh Hussein Atweh was released on Friday, but will be prevented from traveling from Lebanon due to his health condition.

Latin America's leaders are among the most vehement in condemning Israel's Gaza offensive -- labeling the Jewish state "terrorist", recalling ambassadors, and offering near-unanimous, unwavering support to Palestinians.

"I can't remember another similar situation where (all the countries in the region) have reacted practically as a bloc," said political scientist Reginaldo Nasser, a professor at the Pontifical University in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Israel vowed Thursday to keep its troops in Gaza until they finish destroying a network of cross-border tunnels, despite sharp U.N. and U.S. criticism over the Palestinian death toll that hit 1,435.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not accept any ceasefire that did not allow troops to continue destroying tunnels used by militants to attack Israel.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday launched one of his strongest attacks yet on Israel over its offensive in the Gaza Strip, accusing the Jewish state of showing "Hitler-like fascism" against the Palestinians.

Speaking at a mass rally in eastern Turkey to promote his candidacy in presidential elections, Erdogan said he was happy to give back an award that was bestowed upon him by an American Jewish Group in 2004.

Hamas's top military commander Mohammed Deif, who has survived assassination attempts and defied the Middle East's most powerful forces, is proving a redoubtable foe for Israel in its latest incursion in Gaza.

As Israel presses its deadly offensive aimed at halting militant rocket fire and eliminating Hamas's tunnel network, Deif has warned there will be no truce in the Palestinian enclave until Israel ends its eight-year blockade.

Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea considered on Thursday that Lebanon has been drawn back to a “pre-historic” phase, not because of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's acts, but because of some political factions' stances.

“The presidential vacuum that we are witnessing is unacceptable, and it is no longer a farce only but a tragedy that is being reflected in a parliamentary and a ministerial vacuum,” Geagea stated during a meeting with a delegation of the World Lebanese Cultural Union.