JERUSALEM // Israeli special forces stormed a hideout in Hebron early on Tuesday and killed two Palestinians accused by Israel of murdering three teenage settlers in the West Bank.
Amer Abu Eisha and Marwan Qawasmeh, identified by the Israeli military as Hamas militants, were killed as Israeli security forces tried to arrest them in Hebron.
The Palestinian Authority’s security chief Adnan Al Damiri accused Israel of “carrying out operations to kill [people] and destroy houses”.
Palestinian security forces had known “nothing” about the whereabouts of the suspects, nor “how the Israeli army was able to enter this area” which is under full Palestinian control, he said.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the operation, saying the suspects had been “dealt with”.
Eyal Yifrah, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, a 16-year-old with dual Israeli-American citizenship, were abducted and killed while hitchhiking home in the West Bank.
The teens’ abduction and slaying prompted a large Israeli crackdown on Hamas and set off a chain of events that led to a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
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.
Early on Tuesday, the Israeli special forces entered the ground floor of the two-storey building and killed two Hamas operatives after coming under fire, Lt Col Lerner said.
Another three members of the Qawasmeh family were arrested, he said.
“Today’s successful mission brings the long-term search to an end, and the perpetrators of the crime no longer pose a threat to Israeli civilians,” Lt Col Lerner said.
Qawasmeh’s mother Hanan described her son as “a hero” and said it was far better that he had been killed in battle rather than falling into the hands of Israeli forces.
“Thank God that he and the other man were martyred,” she said.
Earlier this month, Israel charged the prime suspect in the teens’ murders, Hossam Qawasmeh, with organising and financing the operation.
In Qatar, Hussam Badran, a spokesman for top Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, praised the two militants on his Twitter account.
“The martyrdom of Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisheh came after a long life full of jihad sacrifice and giving. This is the path of resistance, which we all are moving in,” he said.
Hamas denied involvement for weeks after the teens were abducted. However, during the Israel-Hamas war, an exiled Hamas leader responsible for West Bank operations acknowledged his group had been responsible for the abduction and killing of the teenagers.
In the days leading up to the start of the Gaza war in early July, a Palestinian youth was also abducted and killed in east Jerusalem by Israeli extremists in an apparent revenge attack over the teens’ slaying.
The revenge killing by Jewish extremists of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir in July led to a surge in tensions. The murders helped trigger the war in and around Gaza that ended on August 26, killing more than 2,100 Palestinians. Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel were also killed.
* Associated Press, with additional reporting from Agence France-Presse
