Confirmation of Hamas's involvement took place this morning, with an official statement from the IDF. However, Hamas has not yet claimed abduction. According to a website run by Hamas, sixty of those arrested are members of the terrorist group. There would also be prominent figures, including two former government ministers and seven Hamas legislators.
The name of Hassan Yousef, head of Hamas in the West Bank, stands out. The West Bank has been militarized in just a few hours. Apache attack drones and helicopters have been deployed to provide all kinds of research support. Ground forces piled up along the borders are taking on a dangerous invasion capability.
Yesterday we talked about an unprecedented effort in the search for the three young people, but what is happening at this time is perhaps something more.
The new Palestinian government, which controls the 38 per cent of the West Bank, has rejected the accusations, stating that the boys have disappeared in an Israeli-controlled territory. The three teenagers, Eyal Yifrah of 19 years and sixteen-year-old Gilad Shaar and Naftali Frenkel, were last seen Thursday evening, in Gush Etzion, near Bethlehem, north of Hebron, before being kidnapped by terrorists. They are students of a religious school in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. It is the first time that three civilians have been kidnapped in the same action.
The ongoing and the most impressive search and rescue mission (not during the war) ever conducted by Israel.
Our primary mission - the IDF spokesman General Brigadier Moti Almoz added - is to bring them home as soon as possible. All of Israel's armed forces are in a state of alert and are ready to intervene if the situation, which is already extremely dramatic, should fall. A scenario that could very quickly transform the Middle East into a powder keg.
The Israeli army remains on maximum alert, with all the reserves of the armed forces put on notice of recall. Israel, unlike other countries in the world, is a country built to fight, designed to survive a hostile attack with overwhelming forces and considered capable of an air attack capacity second only to that of the United States. The fear is that behind this kidnapping by Hamas (although it has not yet been claimed) there may be the involvement of some other country, which is why it is not yet clear if we are facing an isolated episode or if instead this is the first piece of a larger mosaic that aims to trigger something or destabilize the precarious Middle Eastern situation.
Palestinian terrorists are not new to these kidnappings that they use as a bargaining chip to get prisoners held in Israeli prisons released. However, each scenario has already been hypothesized.
Washington, meanwhile, preaches caution. The White House has given maximum availability in the search for the three young people. Just this night, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel ordered the USS George HW Bush aircraft carrier to head to the Northern Arabian Sea in the Persian Gulf following the Iraq crisis. Bush is escorted by USS Philippine Sea missile cruiser, USS Truxtun missile destroyer and a Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered attack submarine. By this evening, Bush will begin her mission of projection in the Gulf. But what is more worrying, beyond the tragedy of the kidnapping, is Israel's armed response. The White House would be holding back any kind of retaliation deemed too "heavy" and which could trigger a domino effect on the precarious structure of the Middle East. But every hour that passes feeds the anger of Israeli public opinion that wants their kids back.
Israel, modern history teaches, is a country subject to continuous attacks and "accustomed" to suffer losses. It is also a country that has shaken off the role of world martyr and that responds blow for blow to every attack suffered. Suffice it to say that in the last four days, in response to the attacks, Tel Aviv has ordered two air strikes on the Gaza Strip. In one of these it was "terminated" with an intelligent missile, the terrorist Mahmed Awwar, 33 years, in a structure north of the Gaza Strip. He was held responsible for the last missile attack against the southern Israeli community that took place last April.
What will happen now?
The practice is notorious. If the research turns out to be in vain, in a few hours the kidnapping will be claimed in video, with the three teenagers put on display in front of some cameras and used for propaganda.
Hamas (?) Could demand the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel and this would be the best option for both parties. But if the young people, for whatever reason, do not have to return alive in their native land, then the world will have to prepare for Israel's "anger". In thinking about Israel today, it would be appropriate to forget (certainly not from school education) the Auschwitz gates and the trains full of Jews.
Israel is certainly not a country capable of sustaining a war of attrition, but it has certainly been built to carry with it the greatest number of enemies before succumbing. And on all Israel's nuclear warheads targets in Syria and Iran have already been preloaded.
Franco Iacch
(photo: IDF)
