Two suspects in killing Israeli teens dead

World Today

Israel says it has killed two Palestinians in the West Bank, suspected of being behind the June kidnapping and killing of three Jewish teenagers. Their deaths triggered a 50-day conflict between Israeli forces and Palestinian factions in Gaza. CCTV America’s Roee Ruttenberg has more from Tel Aviv.

The deaths of the two suspects, identified by the Israeli military as well-known Hamas militants, ended one of the largest manhunts conducted by the Israeli security forces. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the development.

“This episode sends a clear and unambiguous message that Israel will do whatever it needs to to deal with threats and challenges wherever they may occur,” he said.

Eyal Yifrah, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, a 16-year-old with dual Israeli-American citizenship, were abducted on June 12 while hitchhiking home in the West Bank and killed soon afterward.

In an operation codenamed “Brother’s Keeper,” Israel dispatched thousands of troops across the West Bank in search of the youths, closed roads in the Hebron area and arrested hundreds of Hamas operatives throughout the territory.

The search ended July 1, when the bodies were found under a pile of rocks in a field north of the West Bank city of Hebron. Officials later said it was believed the three had been killed shortly after the abduction. Israeli forces had been pursuing the suspects, Amer Abu Aisheh and Marwan Qawasmeh, since the abductions, said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman.

Lerner told reporters that there was a recent breakthrough in the search that led the Yamam, a special police counter- terrorism unit, to the hideout in an area of Hebron about a week ago.
Early on Tuesday, the Israeli special forces entered the ground floor of the two-story building and killed two Hamas operatives after coming under fire, Lerner said.

CCTV America’s Michelle Makori interviews Ambassador Ido Aharoni, the Consul General of Israel in New York, to find out more about peace talks between Israel and Palestine.