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On 12 June 2014, three Israeli teenagers went missing in Gush Etzion in the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that they had been kidnapped by Hamas. The three were last seen in the Gush Etzion area, hitchhiking to their homes. The three missing teens are Naftali Frankel (16, from Nof Ayalon), Gilad Shaer (16, from Talmon), and Eyal Yifrah (19, from Elad). Frankel is a dual Israeli-American citizen.

Netanyahu, asserting that Hamas is behind the kidnapping, ordered a crackdown on Hamas infrastructure in the West Bank. Hamas denied the charge. Palestinian authorities noted that the kidnapping occurred in an area under full Israeli control. In 11 days Israel arrested some 350 Palestinians, including nearly all of Hamas' West Bank leaders. Israel's Deputy Minister of Defense, Danny Danon, threatened "possible actions" in Gaza and Ramallah.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas criticized the kidnapping, saying the youths must be returned, and confirmed Palestinian Authority security cooperation with Israel to try to locate them. However, he maintained that there was no evidence to suggest that Hamas was involved in the kidnapping. Hamas praised the kidnapping without claiming responsibility, and condemned Abbas for criticizing the kidnapping.

Several, almost all previously unknown, groups have claimed responsibility for the kidnappings: The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (subsequently denied); a West Bank Branch of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, Brigades of Global Jihad, Ahrar ar-Khalil (Liberators Battalion of Hebron), and Regiments of Hezbollah. It is not clear how realistic these claims are, and the middle three are not considered credible.

Sequence of events

Of the three boys, Eyal Yifrah of El'ad and Israeli-American Naftali Frenkel from Nof Ayalon live in Israel, while Gil-Ad Shaer is a resident of the Israeli settlement of Talmon. Eyal Yifrah is a student at the Shavei Hevron Yeshiva on Al-Shuhada Street in Hebron. The other two are students (talmidim) of the Mekor Chaim yeshiva at Kfar Etzion in the West Bank's Area C under full Israeli military administration. Netanyahu claimed that the attack originated from PA-controlled areas, and criticized the Fatah-Hamas pact.

Day 1 (Thursday night-Friday,12–13 June). At 6:30 pm on Thursday 12 June, Yifrach and Shaer took a ride on Hativat HaNegev towards Gush Etzion. At 10 pm that evening, they were sighted at Alon Shvut Junction, a stone's throw from an Israeli military compound, after which they have not been seen. One boy contacted a police emergency hotline to report the kidnapping at 10:25 p.m. Eight attempts were made to page the caller's cellphone, without checking its ownership, and the whispered remark was taken to one of the many pranks that night and four and a half hours passed before Shaer's family finally phoned the Talmon security coordinator to inform him their son Gil-Ad had not returned home. Only then did the security establishment take the case seriously, and Shin Bet and the IDF were alerted by the police. According to the Palestinian news agency Ma'an, the army succeeded in tracing the call to the Sanjar region, the last cellphone signal being made about 11:30 p.m. in the Hebron area.

Police placed a gag order re the abduction on Israeli news services by 13 June, (the identity of the presumed kidnappers, acolytes of senior Hamas members, being known almost from the beginning) and, in lieu of concrete details, rumours proliferated. Controversy soon raged in Israel over the police delay in reporting the call. At 11 am on 13 June, a “Hannibal” alert (meaning 'kidnapping') was issued. According to Palestinian security sources, a Hyundai i35, with seating for 5, reportedly with Israeli license plates, was torched on the night of 12 June, and found by Palestinian police two kilometres from the village of Beit Einun near Hebron. This vehicle was believed to be connected to the abduction. The suspicion arose that the use of the Israeli sedan was a trick to lull the hitchhikers into believing the vehicle was driven by Israelis.

Days 2–3 (14–15 June). The Hebron and South Hebron Hills areas were the focus of investigations with a large number of troops, by the 15th. 2,500 soldiers together with security agents, police, and special forces engaged in a manhunt, scouring numerous villages, including Beit Ummar, Beit Einun, Halhul, Dura, as-Samu, Tarqumiyah, Beit Kahil, Yatta, Taffuh and Tapuah in what the IDF terms in Israel 'Operation Shuvu Achim (Return, Brothers/Bring Back Our Brothers),' and in English 'Brother’s Keeper'. Little resistance was encountered since the local populations have become accustomed in recent years to regular night raids by the IDF, though rubber-coated bullets and tear-gas canisters have been heard.

Over the weekend, Israeli security forces also arrested around 80 Palestinians, among them senior members of Hamas, suspected of being connected to the kidnapping, in a sweep that rounded up former government leaders, clerics, university lecturers, and militants of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad across the West Bank. In Hebron’s Ein Deir Baha neighborhood Israeli forces broke down a door, apparently by firing a missile, after surrounded the house of Akram al-Qawasami. He, his son Muhammad (8) and younger daughter Sujoud, were injured by shrapnel, and two Hamas operatives, among them Zaid Akram al-Qawasami, were arrested inside. The military also fully closed the Hebron area and Gaza crossings, only allowing passage for humanitarian cases.

On Sunday Netanyahu said what he had only hinted at previously, that Israel ‘knew for a fact’ that the abduction had been carried out by Hamas, a position the IDF had avoided explicitly stating. Security officials remained more cautious, tending to accept the probability that a Hebronite Hamas cell was involved, but uncertain whether it was a local initiative to secure prisoner releases or an operation approved by the Hamas leadership in Gaza. A remark by Moshe Ya'alon about the 'very heavy price' Hamas leaders might pay was interpreted by one journalist, as hinting Israel might be mulling the option of resuming its campaign of targeted assassinations, this time against the Hamas leadership.

Day 4 (16 June). Overnight on 16 June, the IDF clashed with Palestinians in Jenin, where they ransacked the offices of Mustafa Barghouti's Palestinian National Initiative and confiscated computers, and 400 soldiers raided the Jalazone refugee camp near Ramallah, killing Ahmad Arafat Samada (Ahmad Sabarin) (20 or 21) with a gunshot wound in the chest. A dragnet rounded up a further 50 people, bringing the total of Palestinians detained to 150. Many arrests, including the former speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council Aziz Duwaik (66), were part of what IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz described as an extensive operation, and were not linked to the search for the youths, but were part of a crackdown to apply pressure on Hamas. Netanyahu's approach has been interpreted as aimed at driving a wedge between Fatah and Hamas in order to break up the reconciliation between the two negotiated in April 2014, and discredit both Abbas and his government, which has been backed by Western countries. PA sources note that Hamas, in the unity negotiations, had undertaken to desist from attacks and bloodshed, and if its involvement were proven, it would be a breach of the agreement that would render the reconciliation null and void, a point repeated later in the week by the Palestinian Foreign Minister.

Day 5 (17 June). Overnight between the 16th and 17th the Israeli governing authority in the West Bank raided several institutions linked to Hamas in the Hebron Governorate in search of documents, on the suspicion that Hamas charities were money-laundering fronts to finance terrorism, and only took advantage of the poor in order to gain their support. Anything linked to Hamas was being targeted, an official source said. The IDF shifted its attentions north, and deployed 1,000 soldiers from the Nahal Brigade for operations around Nablus. In particular the Balata Refugee Camp and the village of Awarta were scoured in what a spokesman called '"cleaning house" in the "terror capital of Nablus"', and a further 41 Palestinians were detained, among them the manager of the Hamas-run television channel Al-Aqsa TV, bringing the number of arrests to 200.

Conflicting reports emerged on Israel's collaboration with both the PNA and other regional governments. Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Yoav Mordechai, denied on 16 June that Israel coordinated the search with Palestinian or Egyptian authorities. However, Israel military intelligence confirmed that Israel was working closely with both the PA authorities and Egypt. Egyptian sources stated the same day that Israel had requested their assistance and that President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had issued directives to his security services to undertake negotiations with all parties. On the 17th, Israel defence sources said PNA assistance had been "very professional".

Day 6 (Wedneday, 18 June). Overnight Israel seized a further 64 Palestinians, of whom 51 were Hamas members who had been formerly arrested but had been released in the Gilad Shalit exchange negotiations in 2011, bringing to 240 the number of arrests. In six days, the government sources announced, they had searched 800 structures, including the Al-Aqsa radio station in Ramallah and the Hebron-based TransMedia communications company, both linked to Hamas. They were taken in operations in Hebron, Jenin, Nablus, Yatta, Taffuh, Dura, Beit Kahil, East Jerusalem, Idhna, Surif, Beit Ula, Beit Awwa, Deir Sharaf, Salfit, Audla, Tell, Beit Furik and Qabatiya. The overnight operations also secured the defenses of Israeli settlements. However, in the process 300,000 Palestinians were left under curfew, 600,000 in the area had their movements restricted, and Hebronites with permission to work in Israel, an estimated 20,000, were denied entrance into Israel and thus their livelihood, and, according to an IDF spokesmen, Palestinians preparing for the Ramadan holiday have 'taken a hit'. Home Front Defense Minister Gilad Erdan also stated that Israel had identified the Hamas cell responsible for the kidnapping.

Day 7 (19 June). Overnight, troops raided the Bir Zeit University's student union searching for incriminating evidence, finding promotional material for Hamas. The Prime Minister declared at a press conference:"“We know more today than we did a few days ago.” The IDF arrested 25 wanted Palestinians in the West Bank, and searched 200 homes. Nine more raids were launched against Hamas social services (Dawah) centers. Moshe Ya'alon outlawed West Bank activities of the British Muslim charity, Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) because some of its offices employed Hamas members. In East Jerusalem, a social centre operated from a Beit Safafa mosque in Beit Safafa village, and a Sur Baher charity were also closed down. By night's end, 49 Palestinians had been arrested. One of the refugee camp detainees complained that soldiers had stolen $580 from his wallet.

Day 8 (20 June).

Throughout the week, the arrest of Hamas leaders went quietly as they acceded to their detention, but by Friday sporadic popular resistance began to emerge. Three Palestinians were wounded in a raid on Qalandiya refugee camp, near Jerusalem, while another five were wounded in clashes at the Dheisheh refugee camp by Bethlehem, whose Ibdaa cultural center was wrecked, cheques and money from its safe, together with five computers, confiscated. Four of the victims were reportedly run over by an Israeli jeep. During a clash near the Qalandiya checkpoint in Ramallah, in which handmade grenades were hurled at Israeli soldiers who felt their lives were threatened and returned live fire at Palestinian crowds that confronted them, Mustafa Hosni Aslan (22) received a gunshot wound to his head, and was pronounced clinically dead. He died on 25 June. Live fire was used according to the IDF in response to Molotov cocktails, pipe bombs, one makeshift grenade, firecrackers, and stones being thrown at soldiers at the camps. In a clash in which several Palestinian youths threw stones and molotov cocktails at 150 soldiers storming Dura's Haninia neighbourhood in a dawn raid to detain a person Israelis consider to be a terrorist, an Israeli soldier shot and killed 13/15-year-old Mohammed Dudeen. 25 more Palestinians were arrested at Dura and Dheisheh, bringing the number of detainees to 320, of which 240 are considered Hamas operatives. The number of sites searched mounted to 1,150, of which 1,000 buildings were damaged, the figure including over 750 homes. According to Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki Israel had destroyed 150 homes by week's end. In another dawn raid on the Dean's Office and Student Union of the Arab American University in Jenin papers were seized, and Amir Saadi, 17, was shot in the shoulder. The villages of Arraba, Al-Louz and Artas were also raided.

Riyad al-Malki demanded Israel produce evidence that Hamas is culpable, stating that Netanyahu cannot 'keep blaming one side without showing evidence'. He said Israel's massive military sweeps were unacceptable, with 300 Palestinians taken in exchange for three Israeli kids, but the Palestinian authority would act to prevent an uprising, for 'if the situation continues as it is, this will end up (with) the destruction of what we have built in Palestine'.

On Friday night, Israeli security spokesmen said the 'noose was tightening', as troops were concentrated near Hebron, with intelligence officials confident that attempts to move the youths to either Jordan, Gaza or the Sinai had failed. A spokesman for the Prime Minister, Amos Gilead, stated that Netanyahu's view that Hamas was responsible was "built on the base of firm intelligence." IDF forces ransacked Bethlehem's biggest Islamic charity, devoted to Orphan’s Care, in the Jabal al-Mawalih neighborhood and took away computers and files.

Day 9 (21 June). Israeli forces concentrated their investigations on villages north of Hebron, searching wells, pits and houses. According to Palestinian reports, an elderly man, Ali Abed Jabir, either died during an altercation with Israeli troops who broke into his home while ransacking houses in the village of Haris, or was denied passage for medical treatment after suffering a heart attack. Israel sources state the house was not raided and, on being told of the heart-attack, an Israeli ambulance was called. A further 39 Palestinians, primarily in Hebron and Bethlehem, were arrested in overnight raids, bringing the number seized to roughly 370, 75 of whom had been released in the 2011 prisoner swap. IDF sources challenge the report saying only 10 Hamas 'terrorists' were seized. Further claims of soldiers stealing money were made by villagers in Beit Kahil. In the village of al-Bireh, several houses were ransacked, and soldiers broke into the Noon Center for Islamic Studies and the Palmedia TC company where they confiscated computers and damaged furniture. The IDF said cash had been confiscated in 21 homes of the 146 homes searched overnight. Palestinian sources also state that in a predawn raid in Nablus, a female reporter was assaulted and troops shot and injured two Palestinian teenagers. In the late afternoon three fire trucks, with pumps to empty pools of water, and an ATV rescue unit were rushed to assist special forces searching an area riddled with caves and wells north of Hebron, between Highway 35 and Highway 60, reportedly without concrete intelligence leads. Netanyahu reaffirmed that 'the information in Israel's hands unequivocally indicates that Hamas is responsible for the abduction of the youths.'

Day 10 (22 June).

Israel units shot dead 2 Palestinians and wounded another 11 in overnight clashes in Ramallah and Nablus, while 9 (Israeli version) to 38 (Palestinian statistic) were arrested and 5 charity offices were raided. Israeli forces also raided Abu Dis and Al-Quds University's law faculty, seizing flags and several computers. Ahmad Said Suod Khalid (27), an epileptic, of Ein Beit al-Ma' refugee camp was shot in the abdomen, back and thigh, for refusing an order to turn back as he insisted on going to a mosque for dawn prayers. Muhammad Ismail Atallah Tarifi (30) was found dead on the roof of a building opposite an Israeli sniper position, an autopsy found he was shot dead by an M16, a rifle in use with the IDF. Mourners at his funeral in al-Bireh later complained that settlers from Psagot had fired at them, injuring one. Palestinians, protesting at the cooperation given Israel forces by their own police, who have dispersed crowds by firing live ammunition in the air, smashed four local police cars in Ramallah, and, once Israelis had withdrawn from the city, raided a police station in Al Manara Square. Abbas, affirming that he was not convinced Hamas was responsible, called on Netanyahu to condemn two earlier killings, and asked if the criminal kidnapping justified 'the killing of Palestinian youth in cold blood?' The Palestinian Prisoners' Society names 420 people so far arrested, claims Israel consistently understates the numbers and refuses to disclose where they are detained.

On Sunday the Palestinian Authority asked for an urgent convening of the UN Security Council, while mulling an appeal both to the High Contracting Parties of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the UN General Assembly to put an end what it considered to be 'collective punishment', 'Israeli terrorist aggression against the State of Palestine', and what Hanan Ashrawi termed 'a reign of terror directed against a captive Palestinian population.'

Day 11 (23 June). 80 locations, including 7 Hamas-linked charities, were raided from the Nablus to Hebron and Jenin areas, with a further 37 Palestinians detained overnight. 5 money-changing shops in Hebron (4) and Bethlehem (1) were also searched, and their computers confiscated. The number of Palestinians under detention rose to 471. An officer interviewed on Walla! said that Israel, having achieved most of its "band of targets", would close, and that the military incursion pattern in the West Bank, apart from detention raids, would stop within days. No clue to the teenagers' whereabouts, had turned up, but the operation, in crippling Hamas's infrastructure, had been a success. Netanyahu declared that:“We’ve pretty much figured out who are the kidnappers — the actual perpetrators, the supporters, the command structure — and there’s no question, these are members of Hamas.”

Day 12 (24 June). 120 buildings were searched and 4 to 13 Palestinians were rounded up by Israeli forces in the Hebron area, in Beit Kahil, Beit Awwa, al-Arrub refugee camp, and the Hebron neighbourhoods of al-Mahawir, al-Bassa, and al-Hawooz, bringing the number of sites examined to 1,800 and the number of detained Palestinians, in the IDF calculation, to 354, or according to Palestinian sources, over 500. As town searches and arrests wound down, investigators have shifted their focus to interrogations of detainees and scrutiny of the 150 security cameras in the area in which the kidnapping is believed to have taken place. The IDF admitted it had no substantial lead on the boys' whereabouts, or fate. A lawyer for the PA said that in the wake of the West Bank round-up, the number of Palestinian minors detained in Israeli jails exceeds 250, and that the hunt for the missing Israeli youths serves to cover up this fact.

Day 13 (June 25). 17 Palestinians were arrested overnight in Yatta, Beit Ummar, Hebron and Bethlehem among them legislative council members Khalid Tafish and Anwar Zaboun, both of Bethlehem, bringing the number of Palestinian legislators arrested in the campaign to 12. Of the 19 people arrested in Beit Ummar since the start of the search, 14 are minors. A Palestinian youth in Khursa, Younis al-Rjoub (18), was shot in the abdomen during a clash with Israeli soldiers.

Day 14 (June 26). 136 structures were searched overnight, and a further 10 Palestinians were arrested in the Hebron area on suspicion of being terrorists. Fatima Ismail Issa Rushdi (78) died of a heart attack during an Israeli raid on the Arruba refugee camp. 9 youths were injured by tear gas and rubber bullets. Two boys, aged 13 and 14 were arrested in Dura.44-year-old Ismail Ahmad al-Hawamda was shot in the foot, running away from a checkpoint in the Hebron district town of al-Samu. Despite the Oslo Accords stipulating coordination with the PA security service for Israeli entry into West Bank Areas in the Area A, in what was called an 'unprecedented move, Israeli units raided the Tunis and Rafidia neighborhoods of Nablus and Balata refugee camp without prior clearance. 200 homes in Awarta were also raided.

According to Israel figures, state detentions number 381, of whom 282 affiliated to Hamas. The number of locations searched rose to 1,955, including 64 Hamas institutions. Palestinian figures state that 566 have been detained, 6 were shot dead and over 120 wounded; 2 elderly people died of heart attacks during Israeli operations, and over 1,200 homes were searched.

Week 3 On 26 June, police revealed the names of two Hebronite Palestinians, absent from their homes in the Haris neighbourhood since day 1, whom they suspect to be involved in the abduction, Ammar Muhammad Abu Eisha (33), a locksmith, and Marwan al-Qawasmi (29), a barber. The former's brother was killed in a clash with the IDF in November 2005, while the latter's uncle, a Hamas military commander, was killed by an Israeli SWAT squad in June 2003. A senior Palestinian intelligence official said off the record that their disappearance constitutes: "clear evidence they have links with the abduction."

Deployment of forces

In the first week, Israel added a further three to the six combat brigades already present in the West Bank. Close to 40 battalions are engaged in rounding up suspects, notably the Paratroopers' 35th Division and the Kfir's 900th Division. Other specialized groups, such as the Duvdevan Unit, the Egoz Reconnaissance Unit and the Airborne Rescue And Evacuation Unit 669 supplement the search force. Skylark mini UAV drones are being deployed, and the Yahalom combat engineering unit is also active in tunnel searches. Fifty Bedouin IDF trackers are also being used.

Accusations of collective punishment

On Thursday Day 7, The Palestinian Authority declared that the Israeli modus operandi, of clamping down on towns with closures and continual arrest of Hamas members, consisted of collective punishment. Amnesty International issued a statement on 19 June calling both for the release of the Israeli youths, their humane treatment while being held, and for Israel to lift several measures it defined as collective punishment in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention as well as Customary international humanitarian law.

Among the measures it identified, Amnesty International listed:

• The taking of civilians, in this case the three youths, whose abduction and use as hostages, even in what it termed the unlawful Israeli settlements in 'Occupied Palestinian Territories,' is prohibited under international law.
• Many of the Palestinian Hamas members rearrested, including reportedly 18 parliamentarians, have been subject to administrative detention, without trial or charges being laid, a practice Amnesty condemns.
• It regards the arrest of individuals in connection with abduction, without evidence of complicity and only because of an alleged affiliation with the Hamas movement, to be 'arbitrary and in breach of international human rights law.'
• The killing of Ahmad Sabarin in a refugee camp where Amnesty had previously documented Israel's the use of excessive force.
• The total closure imposed on 750,000 Palestinians in the Hebron district.
• Restrictive measured imposed by the Israel Prison Service, in cancelling family visits for Palestinian prisoners and detainees, when many are in danger from the hunger strike against the practice of administrtive detention.
• The option entertained by Israel of transferring West Bank Hamas officials or prisoners to the Gaza Strip violates the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits an occupying power from forcibly deporting people from an occupied territory.
• The closure of the Erez Crossing and Kerem Shalom border crossing, the transit points for supplying the Gaza Strip with basic necessities. The 7 year blockade of the Gaza Strip was, in their view, in flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
• Rockets attacks from Gaza into Israel constitute a war crime, but cannot be cited to justify measures of collective punishment against the 1.7 million Palestinians in that area, several of whom have been killed or injured by Israeli missile strikes.

Several Israeli scholars have rejected the claim that Operation Brother’s Keeper constitutes collective punishment under international law:

Robbie Sabel, a professor of international law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a former legal adviser to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, stated that Israel’s actions cannot be considered collective punishment as they are aimed exclusively at finding the kidnapped teenagers and weakening the terrorist organizations behind their abduction and that in a search for kidnapped civilians, the arrests of members affiliated with the organization responsible for the kidnapping is legitimate.

Eugene Kontorovich, international law professor at Northwestern and Hebrew universities has stated that “rounding up suspects, or potential witnesses, is not punishment, but rather rudimentary investigative process; especially when the crime is thought to be committed by a complex terror organization, the number of potential witnesses is high.” Kontorovich cited as an example that police often arrest members of a gang after a crime to further investigate the perpetrators or criminal acts.

Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar Ilan University stated that in the context of international law, collective punishment means the imposition of specific criminal penalties on innocents, and not measures that have collateral impact on the general population; it is understood that civilians will be affected by searches for kidnap victims and perpetrators who may be located in civilian areas, and compared this situation to Boston police when they locked down surrounding areas in their search for the Boston Marathon bombers. Regarding Israel’s restrictions of prisoner privileges, he asserts that this is falsely labeled “collective punishment” and that denying privileges, such as watching the World Cup on TV, is not the same as violating rights.

Background, possible motives, and suspects

In an address to the World Economic Forum in May 2013, Mahmoud Abbas pleaded with his Israeli listeners to address the primary concern of Palestinian society, the plight of approximately 5,000 security prisoners languishing in Israeli prisons. The problem could be handled by negotiated concessions or by abductions, used to get them back. This has been called his Prisoner's dilemma, and he asked if Israel wanted more Shalit kidnapping cases, a practice he maintained went against the grain of Palestinian culture. Hamas quickly challenged his statement as 'unpatriotic'.

Some 300 prisoners are presently on a hunger strike against the Israeli practice of holding Palestinians in Administrative detention without laying charges for six months or more. Militants and many Palestinians support the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers and civilians as “bargaining chips for justice”, in order to obtain the release of these prisoners. In 2011, Israel released more than a thousand Palestinian in detention, many convicted by Israeli courts for lethal attacks, in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier kidnapped by Palestinian militants after the IDF had abducted two sons of a Hamas member. Some months before the 2014 incident, an 18-page manual on abduction techniques was published by Hamas. Entitled “Guide for the Kidnapper,” it provided an operational guide that outlined the use of pistols with silencers, the use of backup cars, the choice of conducting the abductions on rainy days, a command of Hebrew, the renting of hideouts in areas to avoid arousing suspicions and suggestions to refrain from announcing the outcome of the kidnapping until the victims were secured in a safe house. Fatah is reported to believe that Ismail Haniyeh has given the go-ahead to Palestinian cells to pursue such tactics in order to “bring the prisoners affair to an end.” The difficulty confronting the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades which has an on-going debate on the issue is the coordination between the PNA and Israeli security services which makes executing such operations difficult. Several prior incidents, such as the murders of Givati soldier Gal “Gavriel” Kobi and Baruch Mizrahi, a police superintendent, displayed exceptional, high-level skills, strict compartmentalization, and careful preparations for an escape route, features shared by the kidnapping. These elements resemble the carefully planned abductions of IDF soldiers by Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border. Since 2013, the IDF and the Shin Beth have foiled between 54 and 64 kidnapping plots. The PA said it had foiled 43 of them. Hamas has put considerable effort into kidnapping attempts through its large network.

A week into the search for the missing youth, Avi Issacharoff cast doubts on the premise for West Bank operations, which in his view have 'targeted the weak' – since Hamas has neither a large or strong presence there- and argued that the operational order, if there was one, came from either Gaza, or abroad, perhaps Ankara-based deportee Saleh al-Arouri, or Khaled Mashaal, who appeared to hint a month earlier in replying to a letter from an imprisoned Hamas leader, after Netanyahu reneged on releasing a fourth group of Palestinian prisoners, that the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades would be his reply. Issacharoff concluded however that, "There isn’t a smoking gun to prove the Hamas leadership is complicit in the kidnapping." Two top commanders of the al-Qassam Brigades have so far avoided arrest, but suspicion also exists that a Salafi cell, specializing in stolen cars, and expelled from Hamas in Hebron for its religious extremism, might be responsible.

Tremping debate in Israel

As many Israelis asked themselves “What were they thinking, hitchhiking in the middle of the territories?”, a hushed debate circulated among Israelis, most of whom rarely go to the West Bank, about the practice of hitching rides on roads in the Occupied Palestinian territories, widely regarded as a cavalier and irresponsible habit for the costs involved in redeeming anyone who is captured. The normal Israeli practice is one where drivers pull up, declaring their destination, and, by their accent, allowing potential hikers at trempiada (hitchhiking stations) an opportunity to examine the cues, before they accept or decline a lift. Such tremping (hitchhiking) has long been a hallowed method of travel among Israelis, but as abductions and killings of hitchhikers, mainly IDF soldiers, began to take root in the 1980s, one incident in October 1994 led to the passage of regulations that forbade military personnel from resorting to this method of travel. To hammer the message home, recruits doing basic training are required now to view "Snuff films" that highlight the dangers, and military police "abduct" and punish recruits who do not take it seriously.

Israeli governments have not regulated civilian recourse to hitching, and laws delegate responsibility to parents, expecting them to advise their children. The practice however remains popular among the dati leumi community of religious Zionists for several reasons: many of them, as in this case, have children boarding in West Bank settlements, in areas with a strong Palestinian presence and with poor public transport facilities. Haaretz reported that for mitzvah-observant adolescents, it is "a rite of passage, a way of life, a declaration of independence and of ownership of the land". Retired Brigadier General, Nitzan Nuriel, a former counter-terrorism officer in the Prime Minister's Office, declared on Israeli television that hitchhiking had an ideological edge: it made a statement about who owns the territory, which both Palestinians and most of the world regard as occupied.

Reactions

 Israel

A social media campaign was started on Friday advocating for the safe return of the teens under the hashtag #BringBackOurBoys. The campaign was initiated by graduates of Haifa University's online Hasbara program, established to teach students how best “to use social networking sites to defend government policies” and “utilize online platforms to convey a pro-Israel message.” The campaign's label attempted to make the link between the then-recent #BringBackOurGirls campaign following the Chibok schoolgirl kidnapping in Nigeria, though that campaign was started by independent Nigerian internet activists while the Israeli campaign was initiated by a group trained to promote and defend the Israeli government's polices. On 15 June, around 25,000 people gathered for a prayer at the Western Wall for the release of the kidnapped teenagers.

In spite of security cooperation with the Palestinians, Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to be trying to use the incident to score political points against the recently formed Palestinian technocratic unity government. An Israeli government official stated to Reuters news agency that Israel was looking to use the search as a pretext for a wider crackdown on Hamas and were looking into the legal aspects of deporting Hamas leaders from the West Bank. A Hebrew-language Facebook page calling on PM Netanyahu to assume his responsibilities and requesting that a Palestinian "terrorist" be executed every hour until the three youths are restored to their families, gained 10,000 thumb-ups within hours.

With a perception in Israel, expressed by Thane Rosenbaum, that the sympathy long lavished on Israel is dwindling, the government stepped up hasbara efforts abroad, especially in Brazil where the 2014 FIFA World Cup has dominated the world's attention. An aircraft trailed a #BringBackOurBoys banner along a Rio de Janeiro beach. The families of the missing boys went to Geneva to address the UN's Human Rights Council.

• On television, Netanyahu declared that "Anyone trying to harm Israeli civilians will be harmed in return."
• Israel's Economic Minister Naftali Bennett said Israel will make membership of Hamas a 'ticket to hell', branding it one 'of the most “lethal, barbaric organizations in the world.” Both the PA and Hamas, he affirmed, formed a 'complete culture where Israel is Satan.'
• 15 June. Moshe Ya'alon cited the kidnapping as "additional testimony to the cruelty and seething hatred that guides the terror groups in our region."
• 'Israel has decided to perform a root canal to uproot everything green in the West Bank,' reported on Israel's Army Radio, green also being the colour of Hamas.
• Israel's ambassador to Italy, Naor Gilon, declared that "Europe backs Hamas' government and the kidnapping of children and Israeli civilians."
• 'We're witnessing the unrestrained brutality of Islamic terrorism, both in Israel and around us.' Netanyahu to Ban Ki-Moon.
• 'Not only are the kidnappers terrorists, but so is Hanin Zoabi'. Avigdor Liberman, writing in Facebook of his Knesset colleague.
• Rabbi Dov Lior said the abduction was God’s punishment for anti-religious legislation in the Knesset and Israel’s readiness to abandon parts of the Land of Israel.Yuval Diskin countered: If so, why did God arrange for religious boys to be kidnapped if he was angry with secular Israelis?

 Israel- Palestine

• 15 June.Jews and Muslims who work fields as part of the Shorashim/Judhur cooperative project near where the kidnapping took place met and discussed their distress for several hours.
• 17 June. Jews many from the Etzion Bloc and Muslims held a joint prayer session at the kidnapping site. Rabbi Michael Melchior said Islamic clerics were concerned and demanded the youths' immediate release, and Israel's distress was shared by Palestinians. Jerusalem Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Hawa recited the Al-Fatiha chapter of the Quran, adding that 'there is a wall between our two nations, and we hope to remove the wall separating the hearts of humans.'
• In an interview with Globes Yishai Fraenkel, uncle of the missing Naftali Frankel, recounted that he had received "no few messages of support and encouragement from Palestinian sources" who had said they were repulsed by the kidnapping and were "praying for the boys' welfare".
• Human rights organization B'Tselem condemned the kidnapping of the three students and called for their immediate release, saying "any deliberate attack against civilians is absolutely prohibited". They also cautioned Israeli authorities to uphold human rights and avoid collective punishment of the local population in their efforts to bring the students home safely.

 Palestine

The Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas' office released a statement condemning the kidnapping and the Israeli response of raids and arrests. At U.S. urging, Abbas was working closely with Israel to coordinate the search for the teens. A PA spokesman stated that holding Palestinian authorities responsible for kidnappings in Area C of the West Bank,where Israel exercises full military control and prohibits a Palestinian police presence plays them in an impossible position.

Hamas, calling the kidnappers ‘heroes, condemned the PNA collaboration with Israel to track down the culprits as a moral stain. High-ranking members of Hamas denied the group had any involvement or foreknowledge of the incident. In social media, many Palestinians criticize the strong emphasis placed by Israel on the teenagers' disappearance to the detriment of Palestinian suffering, citing the case of two Palestinian boys shot dead by Israelis at a protest in Beitunia during a Nakba Day protest on 15 May 2014.

On Twitter In response to the IDF campaign, Palestinian sympathizers appropriated the hashtag as their own, drawing attention to both Palestinian prisoners in Israeli gaols and Palestinian children killed by Israeli actions. One mentioned 5,271 Palestinian political prisoners, 192 administrative detainees, 17 women and 196 children. Senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials have stated that kidnapping Israeli soldiers and settlers is the only route to obtain the release of Palestinian prisoners. Palestinian Fatah and Hamas activists called on Palestinian shopkeepers and businessmen in Hebron, via Facebook, Twitter and other social media, to destroy any CCTV footage that could be used by Israel to help locate the teens. Fatah activists in Hebron also confiscated security cameras in order to frustrate the search.

Fatah's Facebook page posted a cartoon mocking the kidnapped teens, depicting them as rats dangling from a fishhook. The rats were marked with black yarmulkes and Stars of David, stereotypical attributes of Jews.

In the Gaza Strip, families of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel celebrated the kidnapping by handing out sweets to passersby from a protest tent which had been erected to express solidarity. Gazan Palestinians also released a song on social networks mocking the kidnappings, and called for additional abductions. A Palestinian group mounted a video on Youtube parodying the abduction, in a fictional scernario feating an “Abu Saqer el Khalili Brigades, the Kick Ass Branch”, apparently taking the event to be a Jewish plot with Arab complicity while mocking Islamic extremism.

• Knesset Member Hanin Zoabi stated that the kidnappers were not terrorists, but frustrated people resorting to such measures 'until the citizens of Israel and the public sober up and relate to the suffering of others,' mentioning the mothers of Palestinians who are being detained without trial.
• 'Three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped, but the two Palestinian kids who were killed were not even mentioned ? The blood of Jews is more precious than the blood of Palestinians?' Hanin Zoabi.
• Hamas parliamentarian Salah Bardawil:"We are capable of igniting a third Intifada which is an irrevocable right that will go off when more pressure is exerted on the Palestinian people."
• 'I don’t plan to punish anyone based on suspicions or because Netanyahu claims something. If Netanyahu has information, he should update me and we’ll take care of it according to our laws.' Mahmoud Abbas.
• 'The world cannot stand by while Israel, the occupying power, commits such grave breaches of international law.” Hanan Ashrawi.

International

17 June. Netanyahu expressed disappointment over the tepid international response to the kidnapping.

•  United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon released a statement condemning the abduction, expressing "deep concern on the trend toward violence on the ground and attendant loss of life, including today of a child in Gaza as a result of a recent Israeli airstrike." He expressed solidarity with the families of the abducted, called for their immediate release and called for restraint on both sides.
• In response to proposals in the Security Council to make a statement to the press condemning the kidnapping, and the collective punishment and deaths of Palestinians during Israel's operations on the West Bank, no agreement could be found: the U.S. representative Samantha Power said that any form of words critical of Israel would constitute a 'red line' for Americans.
•  United States said that it was "very concerned" about the well-being of the teens, and that it was working with Israel and the Palestinian Authority to resolve the situation.
•  European Union's ambassador to Israel tweeted that he was "deeply concerned" about the events and was hoping for the safe return of the teens. Catherine Ashton's office condemned the kidnapping after five days, in the wake of Israeli official expressions of disappointment.
•  Canada's Foreign Minister John Baird expressed deep concern over the event and urged Palestinian security authorities, "who have been trained through Canadian and US leadership", to make every effort to ensure the safe return of the children to their families.
•  Spain condemned the kidnapping, along with Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, and called for restraint.

See also

• 2013–14 Israeli–Palestinian peace talks
• 2014 in Israel
• 2014 in the Palestinian territories
• Kidnapping and murder of Avi Sasportas and Ilan Saadon (Hamas,1989)
• Kidnapping and murder of Nissim Toledano (Hamas, 1992)
• Kidnapping and murder of Yaron Chen (Hamas, 1993)
• Kidnapping and murder of Nachshon Wachsman (Hamas, 1994)
• Kidnapping of Gilad Shalit (Hamas, 2006–11)
• Kidnapping of Alan Johnston (release secured by Hamas, 2007)
• Kidnapping and murder of Vittorio Arrigoni (captors arrested and sentenced to prison terms by Hamas, 2011)

References

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External links

• Operation Brother's Keeper at The Jerusalem Post
• West Bank kidnapping at Haaretz
• Kidnap Crisis at Arutz Sheva

• Ongoing events
• 2014 in Israel
• 2014 in the Palestinian territories
• Kidnapped American children
• Kidnapped children
• Kidnapped Israeli people
• Kidnappings
• Current events from June 2014