[MUST READ] Hamas Didn't Kidnap And Kill The Three Israeli Teens
Israeli police officials admit the kidnappings were not Hamas's handiwork after all.
By Sadho Ram — 27 Jul 2014, 11:16 AM — Updated over 10 years ago
The recent explosion of violence in Gaza may have been sparked by false claims, according to Israeli police. The ongoing conflict began last month when three Israeli teens were kidnapped from a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Naftali Fraenkel, 16, Gilad Shaer, 16, and Eyal Yifrah, 19, were kidnapped on June 12 from Gush Etzion, an Israeli settlement south of Jerusalem.
dailydot.comAfter an exhaustive search that lasted over two weeks, security forces discovered the boys' bodies in a field just north of Hebron, close to where they were abducted
Israeli soldiers man a checkpoint in the West Bank town of Hebron
Image via Menahem Kahana/AFP / Getty ImagesThe night of their disappearance, one of the boys called a police hotline and whispered, “They kidnapped me.” Police speculate that he may have been caught, leading the perpetrators to kill the teenage boys.
dailydot.comHusam Dofsh, a former member of Hamas, was arrested on suspicion of his involvement on July 5. After learning that he was a suspect, Dofsh called the Times of Israel and insisted he’d taken no part in the kidnapping. “I saw online, and people also told me, that I was tied to the mess, but I did not kidnap and didn’t do anything. I just want to continue my life.”
And when their bodies were found, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not mince words. He said:
During the initial course of Israel's investigation, some 400 Palestinians were arrested and 10 others were killed
Mourners gather for the funeral of Mohammad Al Araj, killed on his 17th birthday
Image via aljazeera.comAmong those detained were Aziz Duwaik, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council and West Bank-based member of Hamas; and Mahmoud al-Khatib, a Hamas legislator was also reportedly abducted by the IDF during a dawn raid in the city of Bethlehem.
nytimes.com
Israel's crackdown in the West Bank instigated Hamas to begin firing rockets into Israel — a move that quickly escalated the conflict, reports The Daily Dot
A Palestinian burns tires during clashes with Israeli security forces in the village of Kafr Qaddum, near the northern city of Nablus, West Bank July 4
Image via haaretz.comIn early July, several members or activists connected to Hamas were killed, including a 14-year-old boy, which led the group to intensified their rocket attacks. Although there were no resulting deaths, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) began successive airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.
dailydot.comBut now, officials admit the kidnappings were not Hamas's handiwork after all, reports New York Daily Intelligencer
On Friday, Chief Inspector Micky Rosenfeld, foreign press spokesman for the Israel Police, reportedly told BBC journalist Jon Donnisonhe that the men responsible for murders were not acting on orders of Hamas leadership. Instead, he said, they are part of a “lone cell.” Further, Inspector Rosenfeld told Donnison that if Hamas’ leadership had ordered the kidnapping, “they'd have known about it in advance.”
dailydot.comBBC's Jon Donnison's, who spoke to Israel Police Foreign Press Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, tweets:
BuzzFeed reporter Sheera Frenkel was among the first to suggest that it was unlikely that Hamas was behind the deaths. Citing Palestinian sources and experts in the field, Frenkel reported that kidnapping three Israeli teens would be a foolish move for Hamas.
International experts told her it was likely the work of a local group, acting without concern for the repercussions.
nymag.com
[Gershon Baskin] pointed out that Hamas has earlier this month signed an agreement to form a unity government with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, bridging, for the first time in seven years, the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and Gaza. “They will lose their reconciliation agreement with Abbas if they do take responsibility for [the kidnappings],” Baskin added.
Repeated inconsistencies in Israeli descriptions of the situation have sparked debate over whether Israel wanted to provoke Hamas into a confrontation
Israeli intelligence is also said to have known that the boys were dead shortly after they disappeared, but to have maintained public optimism about their safe return to beef up support from the Jewish diaspora.
nymag.com
Writing for Al Jazeera, Musa al-Gharbi argued that Israel was deliberately provoking Hamas:
All the illegal and immoral actions related to Operation Brother’s Keeper were justified under the premise of finding and saving the missing teens whom the Israeli government knew to be dead — cynically exploiting the tragedy to whip up public outcry in order to provoke and then confront Hamas. This pattern of deception continues under the ongoing military offensive in Gaza. For example, last week in collaboration with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and Abbas, in its efforts to alienate Hamas, Israel announced a bad-faith cease-fire proposal, which Hamas was not consulted on and never agreed to but whose violation supposedly justified Israel’s expansion and intensification of the military campaign into Gaza.
aljazeera.com
Meanwhile, after continued negotiations, and after Thursday night's massive protests in the West Bank, Israel on Saturday announced that it will extend its cease-fire in Gaza for 24 hours until midnight on Sunday
"At the request of the United Nations, the cabinet has approved a humanitarian hiatus until tomorrow (Sunday) at 24:00. The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) will act against any breach of the ceasefire," an Israeli official said in a statement.
aljazeera.com
However, Hamas rejected Israel's decision to extend the truce, saying Israeli tanks first had to withdraw from the territory. Despite the announced cease-fire, Israel said its troops would respond to any fire from Gaza.
Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas spokesman in Gaza, told Al Jazeera: "Any humanitarian ceasefire that doesn't include the complete withdrawal of its positions in the Gaza Strip, doesn’t enable the residents to go back to their homes and doesn’t allow the evacuation of the wounded, is unacceptable."
aljazeera.com