Palestinians punished in hunt for Israeli teenagers

Rights groups protest as latest arrests and house searches in Balata refugee camp take number of Palestinians detained since last week to more than 200.

A Palestinian girl stands amid the mess created in a bedroom after Israeli forces searched the house in the Balata refugee camp near West Bank city of Nablus on June 17, 2014. Jaafar Ashtiyeh / AFP

TEL AVIV // Israeli forces raided a West Bank refugee camp, ransacking homes and arresting dozens as fears grow that Palestinians are being punished in the biggest crackdown on Hamas in a decade.

The operation, named “Brother’s Keeper”, has seen the number of Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) troops in the territory swell and more than 200 people arrested in a search for three teenagers kidnapped last week outside a settlement near Hebron.

As the military effort entered its sixth day with no sign of abatement, critics warned that the operation amounts to collective punishment of the Palestinian population.

On Monday night, more than 1,000 IDF troops went into the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, a hotbed of Palestinian nationalism that is home to 30,000 refugees.

One resident said that ten houses were raided and dozens of people detained by the IDF, which published pictures of a huge cache of weapons seized on its Twitter feed on Tuesday.

“There were many soldiers. They were looking everywhere. People here are feeling very bad because they are damaging houses and arresting young people without any reason. The kids are scared and people are angry and frustrated,” he told The National.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military continued to block roads in and out of Hebron on Tuesday. The city was effectively sealed off on Sunday and surrounding towns and villages were raided as the campaign to find the teenagers who went missing on Thursday night intensified.

Israel blames Islamist group Hamas for the kidnapping, although no party has officially claimed responsibility.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has been brazen in his attempt to link the kidnapping to the June pact between Fatah and Hamas, which ended seven years of conflict between the two Palestinian parties and was welcomed by both the EU and the US.

Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he held Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas responsible for the safety of the three youths, although Palestinian officials have pointed out the road on which they were hitchhiking is under full Israeli control.

Israeli NGO B’Tselem criticised on Tuesday the comments of Israeli politicians such as Naftali Bennett, who said that Israel was “turning Hamas membership into a ticket to hell.” IDF commanders have also said that the intention of the military campaign was to hurt Hamas as well as secure the missing teenagers, and defence minister Moshe Ya’alon boasted on Tuesday that “Hamas is paying a heavy price” in the continuing military campaign.

“There is growing concern that security forces will adopt further measures whose object is to harm and pressure the Palestinian population. This grave concern is increasing in view of certain statements made by politicians as well as in view of further measures proposed by security establishment officials,” B’Tselem said in a statement.

“B’Tselem calls on the Israeli authorities to refrain from adopting measures which violate human rights and breach international law, and to take only lawful action in the search for the abductees.”

Meanwhile, the Palestine Human Rights Organisation Council condemned the arrest of eight members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) since Thursday, including the head of the PLC. One PLC member has since been released.

It also warned of Palestinian casualties in the latest campaign.

On Monday, troops shot dead 19-year-old Palestinian Ahmad Arafat Sabarin during clashes in Jalazoun camp north of Ramallah. The same day, three people were injured, one of them an eight-year-old boy, when the IDF blew the doors off a house in Hebron and on Tuesday, six Palestinians were injured at protests at Qalandiya checkpoint near Ramallah.

“Although some of the measures carried out by the Israeli forces in large parts of the West Bank may have a link to the investigation into the disappearances, the methods employed are indiscriminate in their nature and are undermining the fundamental rights of the persons concerned,” the Palestine Human Rights Organisation Council said.

The story has gripped both Israel and Palestine, with the Twitter hashtag #BringBackOurBoys attracting tens of thousands of retweets from both inside Israel and overseas. But it has also provoked more extreme reactions — one Facebook page, “liked” by 18,000 people by Tuesday — called for Israel to kill a Palestinian every hour until the three students were returned home.

It has equally provoked an ironic response from Palestinian activists, who have used the hashtag to highlight the detention of young Palestinians by the IDF as well as the killing of teenage protesters, most recently the shooting of two young men outside Ofer Prison, near Ramallah, last month.

The missing Israeli teenagers were hitchhiking home from school outside the settlement of Kfar Etzion when they disappeared. A burnt-out car with Israeli number plates was later found nearby.

On Tuesday, Mr Netanyahu met with the families of Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Frenkel, both 16, and promised that in a “massive operational and intelligence effort” the military was doing everything it could to find the teenagers.