This sickens me to no end, because it was so predictable.

The latest cease fire between Israel and Hamas, which was engineered under pressure from the UN and the United States, has been shattered. According to Israeli reports, 90 minutes into the cease fire, Hamas used one of its tunnels to carry out a suicide bombing attack, killing two soldiers, and kidnapping a third.

According to a preliminary account by Lerner, the Israeli military spokesman, the officer was abducted while Israeli troops were preparing to destroy a Hamas tunnel. Several Gaza militants emerged from a shaft, including a suicide bomber, who detonated his explosive device, Lerner said.

“They took him back through the tunnel,” Lerner said.

Hamas confirmed the kidnapping, but claimed that it happened BEFORE the cease fire took effect, so they are blaming Israel for breaking the cease fire. Of course.

“Israel has ended the truce from one side, and we remain committed to the truce,” said Mousa Abu Marzook, the Cairo-based deputy chief of Hamas’s political wing. “We are only responding because of the aggression targeting us.”

“The capture of the Israeli officer and the killing of two Israeli soldiers happened before the truce,” he said in a television interview. “So there is no justification for Israel to breach the truce.”

The kidnapped soldier has been identified.

BREAKING PHOTO: IDF soldier apparently taken captive in Gaza is 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin, 23, of Kfar Saba. pic.twitter.com/QvuWyEZOER

— Israel News Feed (@IsraelHatzolah) August 1, 2014

As have the two soldiers who were killed.

HEARTBREAKING: Benaya Sarel & Liel Gidoni died in security incident which IDF soldier Hadar Goldin was kidnapped. pic.twitter.com/iLAiQBAkF1

— Israel News Feed (@IsraelHatzolah) August 1, 2014

The UN, in their predictable inconsistency, condemned Hamas in one sentence and then quickly added that they could not verify Israel’s timetable of events.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon denounced “the reported violation by Hamas of the mutually agreed humanitarian cease-fire.” Although the United Nations “has no independent means to verify exactly what happened,” he said reports that two Israeli soldiers were killed and another captured after the truce began “would constitute a grave violation” of the agreement and “call into question the credibility of Hamas’s assurances to the United Nations.”

John Kerry, who I think we can all be grateful was never president of the United States, put out a statement demanding that Hamas return 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin, but then pretty much asked Israel to not retaliate.

JUST IN: Secretary of State Kerry: Hamas must immediately and unconditionally release the missing Israeli soldier pic.twitter.com/19yb6A6KZ4

— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) August 1, 2014

I think that after Gilad Shalit’s kidnapping, and what it cost Israel to get him back, it is obvious that Netanyahu will have little patience for another prisoner swap. And while the UN continues to hand-wring over the fact that Israel has a defense system designed to protect civilians and those poor Gazans don’t – which, incidentally, UN senior human rights’ official Navi Pillay blames on the United States, because we helped supply Israel with missiles that create the “Iron Dome” – they continue to prove that they are the most bloated and amoral bureaucracy on earth at this moment.

I pray for the safe recovery of 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin, and if Hamas gets flattened in Israel’s search for their missing man – so be it.

UPDATE:
On Saturday, the Israeli Defense Force declared that 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin has been killed.

A special IDF committee has concluded that Lt. Hadar Goldin was killed in combat in Gaza on Friday. May his memory be a blessing.

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) August 2, 2014