RAMALLAH, Palestine

Palestinian officials on Tuesday called an Israeli soldier taking an infant girl from Gaza "a heinous crime," saying she should be handed back immediately.

"The kidnapping of the infant girl from the Gaza Strip is evidence that the (Israeli) occupation army is committing the most heinous crimes against civilians without oversight or accountability," the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said in a statement.

It called on Israeli authorities "to immediately hand over the infant to the Palestinian National Authority."

The ministry added that the commission of such an act indicates that it was not the first or the last to be committed in Gaza at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

On Monday, Israeli media reported that an Israeli officer admitted that an army captain had taken a Palestinian baby from Gaza and took her to an unknown place in Israel.

A close friend of the captain said he found a crying baby in Gaza during Israel’s assault on the strip and took her to Israel.

On Israeli Army Radio, Shahar Mendelson, a close friend of Israeli Capt. Harel Itach, who recently died in combat in Gaza, told journalist Yael Dan that Itach took the Gazan baby to Israel, presumably after her family was killed by Israeli forces.

The Israeli army has yet to comment on the incident, which sparked outrage on social media, demanding clarification on the incident as well as the fate of the infant.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar