After arrest of high-ranking Hamas officials, prime minister warns of ‘severe repercussions’ for terror group
Israeli soldiers inspect a house in the West Bank village of Tafoh, near Hebron on June 15, 2014, as they search for three teenagers who went missing near a West Bank settlement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday morning that the Palestinian terror group Hamas was behind the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank on Thursday, and warned there would be “severe repercussions.”
“This morning I can say what I was prevented from saying yesterday, before the wave of arrests of Hamas members in Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu said. “Those who carried out the abduction of our boys were members of Hamas.”
“This has severe repercussions,” he added.
Yeshiva students Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gil-ad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Frenkel, 16, were abducted while hitchhiking south of Jerusalem Thursday night, Israeli officials said, leading to a wide-ranging manhunt in the West Bank to locate the three.
The IDF arrested 80 Palestinians, including senior members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, overnight Saturday as security forces continued to search for information regarding the whereabouts of the students.
Among those arrested was Hassan Yousef, one of the founders of Hamas, along with former ministers and members of the Palestinian parliament, according to the Palestinian Ma’an news agency.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the prime minister’s accusation was “stupid,” and “designed to break Hamas,” according to the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency. Abu Zuhri added that the tactic would not succeed, and that Israeli measures in the West Bank — including the wave of arrests — only indicated the IDF’s “state of confusion” with regard to the kidnapping.
The military said it could offer no comment when asked what signs pointed to Hamas involvement and referred questions to Netanyahu’s office. The Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to a query from The Times of Israel.
Hamas hailed the “success” of the abduction on Saturday, but a senior official of the group denied that the terror group had any involvement or knowledge about the incident.
Two little-known Palestinian terror groups claimed responsibility for the kidnapping on Friday, but it was unclear whether either claim had any credibility.
The prime minister insinuated that Hamas, which recently signed a unity pact with rival Fatah, was behind the attack in his Saturday night address, in which he held Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas responsible for the incident and lambasted his alliance with Hamas as part of the new Palestinian government.
“Those same elements in the international community that said that the Palestinian agreement with Hamas would advance peace now see the true results of this union,” Netanyahu said, declaring that no peace agreement could be made with a Hamas-affiliated entity.
“We hold Abbas and the Palestinian Authority responsible for all attacks against Israel that originate from their territory, whether Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] or the Gaza Strip… The attackers came from Palestinian Authority areas and the Authority is responsible,” he added.
IAF strikes Gaza after rocket attacks
Army confirms it hit six sites linked to ‘terror activity’; Gaza boy hurt in earlier airstrike said to succumb to injuries
Israeli aircraft targeted sites in the Gaza Strip late Saturday night in retaliation for rockets fired at southern Israel earlier in the day, the IDF said.
“In response to the three rockets fired earlier this evening at Israel an IAF aircraft targeted three terror activity sites, two weapon storage and manufacturing facilities in the southern Gaza Strip, as well as a terror activity site in the central Gaza Strip,” the IDF said. “Direct hits were confirmed.”
The Israeli strike came hours after sirens wailed in the Hof Ashkelon area, signaling a rocket attack. The rockets landed in fields and did not cause casualties or damage.
On Thursday, Israel carried out a targeted strike in Gaza against a Palestinian man who was allegedly involved in rocket attacks against Israel.
The man, whom the IDF identified as 33-year-old Hamas policeman and Salafist activist Mohammed Awwar, was killed in the airstrike.
Awwar was involved in two rocket attacks on southern Israel in April and an attempt to down an IDF helicopter, the army said in a statement. It said Awwar was planning more attacks when he was hit.
Ya’alon said that Israel would not tolerate “sporadic [rocket] fire or terrorism attempts whose aim is to disrupt the lives of residents of the south and harm our forces.”
The health ministry in Gaza said Saturday that Ali al-Awour, a seven-year-old boy who was wounded in the airstrike Thursday, had succumbed to his injuries.
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