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Three Teenagers Said to Be Kidnapped in West Bank Israeli Teenagers Said to Be Kidnapped in West Bank
(about 5 hours later)
JERUSALEM — Three Israeli teenagers were missing in the West Bank and were presumed to have been kidnapped, Israeli military officials said on Friday. The episode added a new layer of tensions to Israel’s already strained relations with the Palestinians after the collapse this year of American-brokered peace talks and Israel’s rejection of the newly formed Palestinian government. JERUSALEM — Three Israeli teenagers were missing in the West Bank and were presumed to have been kidnapped, Israeli military officials said on Friday. The episode tested Israel’s already strained ties with the Palestinians and prompted the involvement of the State Department amid reports that one of the youngsters held United States citizenship.
Although occasional violence in the West Bank has continued to claim victims on both sides, the successful abduction of Israelis has been rare in recent years. But the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, said it had foiled more than 60 planned abductions in the West Bank since the beginning of 2013, arresting suspected Palestinian perpetrators before they could carry out their plans. Secretary of State John Kerry called President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. A State Department official said, “We are working the issue as hard as we can.”
The Israeli military was conducting intensive searches in the West Bank, focused on the Hebron area. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was consulting with the defense minister and other top security officials, according to a statement from his office. It added that Israel considers the Palestinian Authority responsible for the safety of the missing youths. Mr. Netanyahu said he held Mr. Abbas responsible for the well-being of the missing teenage boys, who were studying at a religious high school and seminary in the West Bank.
One of the missing boys holds United States citizenship, and the American ambassador to Israel, Daniel B. Shapiro, has been updated on the situation, according to media reports in Israel. The crisis comes at a delicate time, after the collapse this spring of American-brokered peace talks and less than two weeks after the establishment of the new Palestinian government that resulted from a reconciliation pact between the Palestine Liberation Organization, which is dominated by Mr. Abbas’s mainstream Fatah movement, and Hamas, the Islamic militant group that dominates Gaza.
Maj. Gen. Adnan Dameiri, the spokesman for the Palestinian Authority police in the West Bank, said, “We don’t have any information from our side.” Speaking by telephone from Ramallah in the West Bank, he noted that the three teenagers were apparently missing from an area of the West Bank that is under Israeli control. “This is the result of bringing a terrorist organization into the government,” Mr. Netanyahu told Mr. Kerry, according to a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office.
“It is not under our security control or jurisdiction. It is part of Israel’s security responsibility,” he said, adding, “We are not responsible if there is a car accident in Tel Aviv, are we? We are committed to all agreements we signed with Israel.” Israel has shunned the new government because it is backed by Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel and is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and Europe. But the Obama administration and most major powers have agreed to work with it anyway because its ministers are not members of Hamas or other partisan movements and it says it is committed to peaceful principles.
After hours of rumors and a news blackout of the episode imposed by Israeli security services, the chief military spokesman announced shortly after 5 p.m. that Israeli forces had been searching for the three boys since before dawn. Brig. Gen. Motti Almoz gave few details, citing security concerns. Israel has said it would maintain contact with the Palestinian Authority on security issues and Mr. Abbas pledged to continue security coordination with Israel.
According to initial reports the three teenagers were last heard of on Thursday night as they made their way to a hitchhiking station at Alon Shvut in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc south of Jerusalem. A spokesman for the Israeli police, Micky Rosenfeld, said that police received an emergency call from the cellphone of one of the teenagers at 10 p.m. on Thursday. Mr. Rosenfeld said the caller did not talk, but noise could be heard in the background indicating that perhaps he was in some kind of trouble. A Qaeda-inspired group calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — Palestine, West Bank claimed responsibility for the kidnappings, saying it wanted to avenge Israel’s killing of three of its group in the Hebron area late last year and to try to free prisoners from Israeli jails. The credibility of the claim was not immediately clear.
This episode comes at a delicate time, less than two weeks after the establishment of the new Palestinian government that resulted from a reconciliation pact between the Palestine Liberation Organization, which is dominated by the mainstream Fatah movement, and Hamas, the Islamic militant group that dominates Gaza. Israel refuses to negotiate with the government, which is made up of politically independent ministers, on the grounds that it is backed by Hamas. The militant group, which also has a presence in the West Bank, refuses to recognize Israel and is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and Europe. Occasional violence in the West Bank continues to claim victims on both sides, but kidnappings of Israelis have been rare in recent years. Yet the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, said it had foiled more than 60 plots to abduct Israelis in the West Bank since the start of 2013. The Shin Bet said many of the plots were the work of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.
Israel has said it would maintain contact with the Palestinian Authority on security issues and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has pledged to continue security coordination with Israel. It was not immediately clear whether the sides were working together on the case of the missing youths. The search for the missing youths centered on the Hebron area in the southern West Bank. Israeli forces were searching Palestinian houses and took up positions on the roofs of buildings. Troops also confiscated security camera footage from stores in the area; some Palestinians urged storekeepers over the Internet to destroy any video.
Palestinian militant leaders have called for the abduction of Israeli soldiers as hostages to be traded for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Israel’s Army Radio routinely broadcasts announcements warning soldiers against hitchhiking. Maj. Gen. Adnan Dameiri, the spokesman for the Palestinian Authority police in the West Bank, noted that the three teenagers disappeared from an area of the West Bank that is under full Israeli control.
Last September an Israeli soldier, Sgt. Tomer Hazan, 20, was killed by a Palestinian man with whom the sergeant worked at a restaurant in Israel. Security officials said the Palestinian man had lured the sergeant to the West Bank and killed him in the hope of trading his body for a brother imprisoned in Israel. “It is not under our security control or jurisdiction. It is part of Israel’s security responsibility,” he said by telephone from Ramallah, the West Bank, adding, “We are not responsible if there is a car accident in Tel Aviv, are we? We are committed to all agreements we signed with Israel.”
The three youths were last heard from on Thursday night as they made their way to a hitchhiking station in the Gush Etzion settlement south of Jerusalem.
A spokesman for the Israeli police, Micky Rosenfeld, said that police received an emergency call from the cellphone of one of the teenagers at about 10 p.m. on Thursday. Mr. Rosenfeld said the caller did not speak, but background noises indicated that he was in some kind of trouble.
Israeli officials have not released the names of the youths or other identifying details. But according to people with knowledge of the case, one of the youths has American citizenship.
Brig. Gen. Motti Almoz, Israel’s chief military spokesman, said intensive efforts were underway to find them.
Last September, an Israeli soldier, Sgt. Tomer Hazan, 20, was killed by a Palestinian man with whom the sergeant worked at a restaurant in Israel. Security officials said the Palestinian man had lured the sergeant to the West Bank and killed him in the hope of trading his body for a brother imprisoned in Israel.
The abduction of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was held by Hamas for five years, was traumatic for Israelis. He was exchanged for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in 2011.