PA helped Israel kill kidnappers, Hamas charges

Palestinian security cooperation with Israel enabled Israel to target and kill two Hamas operatives suspected of kidnapping and killing three Israeli teenagers in June, a Hamas official in Gaza charged on Tuesday.

Salah Bardawil said in a statement published on Hamas’s official website that “the success of the Israeli occupation in assassinating the perpetrators of the Hebron operation [sic] early Tuesday morning was due to the security cooperation in the occupied West Bank.”

Marwan Kawasme and Amer Abu Aysha were killed during an early Tuesday arrest attempt in Hebron, where they were hiding following the June 12 killing of Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Fraenkel and Gil-ad Shaar. The three teens were initially feared to have been kidnapped, but their bodies were discovered by a search party two-and-a-half weeks later in a field near the West Bank hitchhiking post where Kawasme and Abu Aysha allegedly picked them up.

Bardawil called on Palestinians in the West Bank to “express their anger at the occupation and at security coordination alike.” Hamas has long accused the Palestinian Authority, led by Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas, of harming Palestinian interests by maintaining intelligence and operational coordination with Israeli security forces.

Abbas publicly condemned the abduction soon after it took place, calling it “criminal.”

The bombed-out apartment of Amer Abu Aysha following the discovery of the three slain Israeli teenagers (photo credit: Courtesy/Q.G.)

Bardawil’s scathing criticism coincided with the resumption of ceasefire talks between a united Fatah-Hamas delegation and Israeli representatives in Cairo, meant to solidify understandings reached following Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.

The kidnapping and killing of the Israeli teens was one of the triggers of the war in Gaza over the summer.

Izzat al-Rishq, a Hamas official and member of the delegation to Cairo, wrote on Facebook that talks were delayed by three hours by the Palestinians to protest “the assassination” of Kawasme and Abu Aysha.

The Palestinian delegation raised the demand to construct a seaport and airport in Gaza, demanding to end “all punitive measures” against Hamas in the West Bank following the kidnapping. Hamas stated emphatically that Israel must release its members of parliament as well as prisoners freed in the 2011 Shalit deal and rearrested over the summer after the initial disappearance of the three teens, Rishq reported.

Talks are scheduled to resume in the last week of October, following the Jewish Holidays.