Visitors to the BBC News website’s Middle East page on the morning of Saturday June 14th remained unaware of the fact that a massive search operation is underway in Judea & Samaria to find three Israeli teenagers missing since Thursday evening.
It is feared that the teens have been kidnapped by a terrorist cell.
“Three teenagers hitchhiking in the West Bank have been missing since Thursday night and are feared to have been kidnapped, security officials said. Two of the youths are 16 years old, and the third is 19. One of the teens reportedly holds U.S. citizenship.
The teens, students at the Makor Chaim yeshiva, were thought to be hitchhiking to Modi’in, a city halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. When they did not arrive home or make contact with their families, the yeshiva informed the authorities.
Security forces are currently investigating whether a stolen Israeli vehicle, which was found burnt near Hebron, is linked to the kidnapping. Palestinian firefighters were alerted about the burning car at 3 A.M. on Friday.
Sources in the defense establishment with knowledge of the investigation estimate that the kidnapping was perpetrated by a well-organized and well-prepared cell. The IDF estimates that the kidnappers are attempting to leave Israeli territory, via Jordan.”
On Friday June 13th a Salafist Jihadist organization claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, stating that it was a response to an incident which occurred last November. It is not yet known whether that claim is credible.
The editorial decision not to report this story so far also means that BBC audiences remain unaware of the fact that senior Hamas leader Husam Badran issued a statement calling for Palestinians to instigate clashes with IDF forces in order to obstruct their search and rescue efforts.
Likewise, BBC audiences will not know that a call urging shopkeepers located near the site where the torched car suspected of being used in the attack was found to destroy surveillance camera footage so as to hinder the investigation was posted on a Fatah Facebook account.
As we noted here recently, one of the clauses included in the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip reads as follows:
“Both sides shall take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism, crime and hostilities directed against each other, against individuals falling under the other’s authority and against their property and shall take legal measures against offenders.”
Whilst the PA unity government born out of the recent Hamas-Fatah unity deal has repeatedly claimed that it will uphold all existing agreements with Israel, as we see its midwives have no qualms about encouraging their public to take actions which fly in the face of the PA’s obligations under that treaty.
Also on the morning of June 14th, another missile fired from the Gaza Strip landed in the Sdot Negev area of the Western Negev. The IDF retaliated with strikes on a terror activity site and a weapons storage facility in the southern Gaza Strip. Like all the missiles fired from the Gaza Strip since the inauguration of the new Palestinian government, this one too has to date been ignored by the BBC.
