Four Days On, Search Continues for Israeli Teens Kidnapped in West Bank
At about 10 P.M. on Thursday June 12, three yeshiva students, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Frenkel, both 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19, were hitchhiking home together from Etzion junction in the West Bank. They caught a lift.
At 10:25 P.M. one of them called police and whispered, “We’ve been kidnapped.” The police thought it was a crank call, but it wasn’t. The boys have not been heard from since, and national life in Israel now focuses strictly on finding them, finding the kidnappers, and punishing those behind the crime, whom the government is convinced is Hamas.
Israeli authorities say their “working assumption” is that the boys are alive. However, Channel 10 military commentator Alon Ben-David reported Monday that “there is a very heavy fear for their lives.”
A few unknown Palestinian and Islamist groups have taken responsibility for the kidnapping, but none are considered credible. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has Israeli authorities know “for a fact” that Hamas was behind it; the massive manhunt by Israeli and Palestinian Authority forces is centered on the Hebron area, a Hamas stronghold.
Hamas has denied the accusation, which the organization’s spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri described as “stupid” and a futile attempt to “break Hamas.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has backed Netanyahu’s assertion, saying Washington continues to “seek details on the parties responsible for this despicable terrorist act, although many indications point to Hamas’ involvement.”