A massive search by ground and air continued Monday in southern Israel for a soldier missing four days.
But hope has dimmed that Sgt. Avi Sasportas of Ashdod, a paratroop medic last seen near Gaza on Thursday, will be found alive.
The authorities fear he is the victim of a terrorist kidnapping. If so, it is likely his captors murdered him and left his body to be found as evidence of their action.
Nevertheless, some 2,000 Israel Defense Force soldiers, border police and civilian volunteers continued to comb the countryside on foot, in jeeps and on horseback.
They are moving slowly through fields, woods and orchards, checking underbrush and searching inside caves.
IDF helicopters, pressed into service, are assisting from the air.
The search area, at first confined to the Ashdod-Gaza sector near the coast, has been extended inland to the Judean hills.
A special watch is being kept along the Egyptian and Jordanian boarders and on the beaches, in case the abductors try to smuggle the soldier out of the country.
Sasportas was last seen by a fellow soldier at the Hodiya road junction east of Gaza, waiting for a lift home from the IDF base where he was stationed. The alarm was raised by his family and girlfriend when Sasportas failed to return home.
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