The Popular Resistance Committees, an armed Palestinian group, claimed on Monday in a telephone call to AFP that it was holding an Israeli soldier, saying he was alive.

"We are holding the soldier. He is alive and in good health," said the representative of the group, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He gave no indications as to the whereabouts or the missing soldier, who was abducted during a Palestinian attack on an army border post close to the Gaza Strip on Sunday that left two Israeli soldiers and two militants dead.

The Popular Resistance Committees, together with the armed wing of the governing Hamas movement and the previously unknown Army of Islam claimed joint responsibility for the attack.

AFP