Mass troubles have arisen in Israel and Palestine since three Israeli teenagers have gone missing. Israel has responded to the incident by arresting over 80 Palestinians. The three teenagers have been named as 16-year-old Naftali Frankel from Nof Ayalon, and Gilad Shaarfrom Telman, as well as 19-year-old Eyal Yifrach from Elad. They went missing late Thursday in the West Bank area between Jerusalem and Hebron.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the event as hamas abduction and has accused them of the incident. It has been reported by a Palestinian spokesperson that the teens went missing from Area C, in the Palestinian city Hebron in the West Bank area, which is currently 62 percent under Israeli military control. However, Israel’s Prime Minister has accused Hamas of orchestrating the abduction of these boys. Netanyahu has told soldiers to use all means to find the teenagers, which also suggests that violence, force and more terror will be involved to get to the bottom of this which is likely to worsen the ongoing situation between Israel and Palestine.

Over 80 Palestinians have been arrested since the three teenagers have gone missing. Many Israeli’s themselves have announced that these numbers would grow until the teens are found. The search is centred around Jewish settlement areas between Jerusalem and Hebron. The controversial accusations made by Netanyahu; that the teens missing were abducted , is due to the reason that they went missing in a Palestinian area, yet an Israeli military controlled area too. Israel has thus suspended peace talks due to this incident. They’ve mentioned that they simply will not go ahead with the peace talks with a country who has any involvement at all with the Hamas terrorist organisation.

Battles and conflict have worsened since the situation, with many in Palestine threatened by Israeli soldiers, as well as the daily arrests of Palestinians. A Facebook page set up after the teenage boys went missing has attracted over 17,000 people. The page calls for the execution of a Palestinian every hour until the Israeli teens are found. Some have criticised the page due to the use of promoting violent measures in order to tackle the situation. Pro-Palestinian activist Ben White has criticised the page as “offensive”.

“This is an extreme, offensive example of the dehumanisation of Palestinians, but from the highest level of Israeli political establishment, so many policies are conducted from the racist starting point that Palestinians by their very existence and presence constitute a threat.” Ben White.

White as many other Pro-Palestinian activists believe that this situation is inevitably another way for the Israelis to comprehend this issue as acceptable due to the accusations made that the extremist Palestinian group Hamas are to blame. Hamas have responded to this and have called the accusation “stupid.”

English commentator Jordan Lerer has written in response to this event that his hopes are that the Palestinians who are on the Gaza strip “get cancer” and also that he hoped they “die with agony.”

The anger and hostility shown towards Palestinians by the English commentator in the situation, shows half of what many actually feel. This is therefore very clearly set to worsen conditions in Israel and Palestine. It is bound to cause huge upheaval and further conflict, at least until the teens are found. Although, violence in this region and conflict is quite common and has been for many years. The incident has to some extent just worsened the causes of violence and hostility in the future and has clearly undermined the relationship between these countries even further.

However, it is actually not such a rare thing for something like this to occur in this area. An Israeli Soldier; Gilad Shalit was abducted in 2006 and was later released in 2011 in exchange for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Therefore, this is an indication as to why there have been accusations of Hamas orchestrating an abduction of the missing teenagers. This is then the main reason for why there have been over 80 arrests of Palestinians and also explains the mass support behind the Facebook page. This page shows images of prisoners and calls for Israelis to execute Palestinians until the boys are found again. It further legitimises violent measures to be used by the Israeli public who have supported the page and are advocating that the right response is to make the Palestinian prisoners really suffer to show that the Israeli government are making all Palestinians pay for the misery they have caused.

Nonetheless, the Palestinian President Abbas made a statement about the incident and has stated that “the Palestinian leadership condemns the series of events over the last week, beginning with the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens and ending with a series of Israeli violations.” Both Netanyahu and Abbas are in agreement that the incident was wrong and both have condemned what has happened, however it looks like both countries are still playing a dangerous game in keeping the conflict going.

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