Israel expanded a crackdown on Palestinian militants on Tuesday (June 17), arresting more than 40 Hamas Islamists and shooting and wounding half a dozen people in confrontations sparked by a dragnet military search for three missing teenagers.
Naftali Bennett, a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet said Israel's goal was beyond finding the seminary students who disappeared on Thursday (June 12) to "turning Hamas membership into a ticket to hell."
Israel says Hamas, which signed a unity deal with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in April, kidnapped the three, aged 16 and 19, last spotted near a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Hamas has not claimed responsibility for the abductions. Western-backed Abbas has condemned the kidnappings, as well as Israeli raids and arrests in the West Bank.
The Israeli military said more than 40 Hamas militants had been arrested in overnight raids raising to more than 200 the numbers arrested since Friday (June 13), among them Palestinian Parliament Speaker Aziz Dweik.
The Israeli raids have spread from house-to-house searches though darkened homes in Hebron, a Hamas stronghold, to other parts of the West Bank.
Soldiers and police wounded five Palestinians reported in confrontations in the Ramallah, Jenin and Nablus areas, Israeli and Palestinian security sources said.
Israel said it shot and wounded a Palestinian trying to breach a settlement fence near Ramallah, and another who threw stones in the Nablus area.
Three others were wounded in clashes with Israeli troops in Jenin, Palestinian officials said, where Reuters television footage showed dozens of soldiers marching through empty streets, where most windows and doors were shuttered.
In Gaza, Israel bombed four militant targets early on Tuesday in response to rocket fire at southern Israel. There were no reported casualties in these incidents.
With little progress reported in the searches, Netanyahu's security cabinet was scheduled to convene again to weigh further measures. Officials said the raids were intended to weaken Hamas in the West Bank, not only to find the missing Israelis.
REUTERS