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Three Israeli teens missing in West Bank

Arab-Israel Relations Materials 14 June 2014 06:44 (UTC +04:00)
Three Israeli teenagers have gone missing near a West Bank settlement, the army said Friday, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he held the Palestinian leadership responsible for their safety, Alarabiya reported.
Three Israeli teens missing in West Bank

Three Israeli teenagers have gone missing near a West Bank settlement, the army said Friday, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he held the Palestinian leadership responsible for their safety, Alarabiya reported.

"The IDF (Israeli military) confirms three teenagers are currently missing," an army statement said.

"The individuals were last seen late last night in the area of Gush Etzion," a Jewish settlement southwest of Bethlehem in the southern West Bank, it said, adding that security forces were trying to find them.

The army gave no further details about the disappearance, but refused to say whether the three had been kidnapped.

"We do not give details that could hamper the investigation," a military spokesman said, adding only that a "large scale" search was under way.

Netanyahu's office held the Palestinian leadership responsible for the disappearance in the occupied Palestinian territory.

"Israel holds the Palestinian Authority responsible for the well being of the 3 missing Israeli teens," Netanyahu's spokesman Ofir Gendelman wrote on Twitter.

Israeli media speculated the three may have been kidnapped by Palestinians. One has US citizenship, and the American embassy has been informed, public radio said.

Israeli troops set up checkpoints in the Gush Etzion and Hebron areas to stop and search cars, an AFP correspondent said.

A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority's security services, General Adnan al-Damiri, called Netanyahu's suggestions "mad".

Damiri said that the PA had no authority in the Gush Etzion area, which is under total Israeli civilian and military control.

"Even if there was an earthquake, Netanyahu would blame the Palestinian Authority," he told AFP.

Another Palestinian official said the authority's security services were "cooperating" with Israeli agencies to gather information on the teenagers' disappearance.

Military radio said they were all students at a Jewish seminary or yeshiva, and that they went missing late Thursday near a bus stop.

The Israeli military sent reinforcements to the area and was carrying out searches in the Palestinian village of Dura, southeast of Hebron, an AFP photographer said.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, armed branch of the Islamist Hamas movement ruling the Gaza Strip, issued a statement warning that "the occupier will never have security", but without referring specifically to the missing three.

Public radio said Netanyahu had been in touch with their families to reassure them that "everything" was being done to locate them.

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