Israel foiled 14 kidnapping attempts since start of this year

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that the country’s intelligence service, Shin Bet, had foiled 14 attempts to kidnap Israelis since the beginning of the year.

Netanyahu’s spokesman Ofir Gendelman wrote on Twitter: “Israeli forces thwarted in 2013 over 50 attempts by Palestinian terrorists to abduct Israelis. 14 attempts by Hamas and others were thwarted since January 2014.”

Israel officially announced Friday evening that three Israeli teenagers went missing in the south of the occupied West Bank and it is believed that they were abducted.

The Israeli army said that its “mission is to bring the three missing Israeli teenagers back home safely.”

According to Israeli media, the Israeli security services do not have any hint about the whereabouts of the missing; one among them holds an American passport. Media commentators expect that searching for them might take a couple of days.

In 2006, Hamas abducted an Israeli soldier during a military operation conducted on eastern Gaza borders. In late 2011 it agreed to a prisoners’ exchange and released the soldiers in return for the release of about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Currently, Israel holds just over 5,000 Palestinian prisoners, hundreds of them for more them a one or two decades. More than 250 prisoners have been on hunger- strike for the past 54 days; they are calling on the international community to put pressure on Israel to end their administrative detention.

The UN and other international organisations have issued statements and calling upon Israel to end their suffering. However, the Israelis have taken no practical steps toward this end.

Many observers believe this latest incident may be an attempt by Palestinian to support the hunger-striker’s cause.