Palestinian nationalism

Killing of kidnapped teenagers condemned

ROME -- The Vatican has condemned the killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, describing it as "hideous and unacceptable crime" and an obstacle to peace.

Israel has found the bodies of three missing teenagers, accusing Hamas of their murder and vowing to make the Islamist movement pay.

"This evening, we found three bodies and all the signs indicate that they are the bodies of our three kidnapped youngsters," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ministers at the start of an emergency session of his security cabinet on June 30.

Israeli forces found the bodies of three missing teenagers in the occupied West Bank on June 30 after a nearly three-week-long search and a sweep against the Islamist Hamas group that Israel says abducted them.

Khaleed Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, has called Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to inform him about the developments in the region and Israel’s operations in Gaza and the West Bank, Anadolu Agency reported June 30.

Dozens of Palestinian prisoners who had refused food for 62 days have suspended their hunger strike after reaching a deal with the Israel Prisons Service, their lawyer told AFP.
      

Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians in the West Bank early Sunday in separate clashes that erupted as they made more arrests in the hunt for three missing teenagers.
      

Israel's foreign minister said Sunday a final decision has yet to be made on his threat to expel the UN's peace envoy for offering to help transfer Qatari funds to Gaza.
      
Avigdor Lieberman was reported to have said by Channel Two television that he wants to declare Robert Serry persona non grata and expel him from Israel over the alleged offer.
      

A compromise formula this week saved Israel from being sanctioned by world football governing body FIFA and has bought the Jewish state time, but serves as a harbinger of growing diplomatic and public impatience with perceived Israeli intransigence in efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel said on June 15 Hamas militants had abducted three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank, warning of "serious consequences" as it pressed on with a search and detained dozens of Palestinians.

The two 16-year-olds and a third man aged 19 disappeared on June 12 night in the West Bank, where they were seminary students in a Jewish settlement.

Israel was reinforcing troops in the occupied West Bank on Saturday to step up searches for three Israeli teenagers believed to have been abducted by Palestinians, a military source said. 

The disappearance of the three on Thursday as they tried to hitch a ride from a Jewish settlement where they were studying sparked a dragnet around the nearby Palestinian city of Hebron.