West Bank killers planned to hold teens below barbershop

Palestinian kidnappers who abducted and murdered three Israeli teens in the West Bank a year ago dressed as Orthodox Jews to trick the trio into getting into their car for a ride, police said Thursday.

Revealing fresh details about the case, police also confirmed that the kidnappers intended to keep their hostages alive, but changed plans when three people entered the car at the hitchhiking post.

On the evening of June 12, 2014, Hamas operatives Amer Abu Aysha and Marwan Kawasme picked up Gil-ad Shaer 16, Naftali Fraenkel, 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19 who were hitchhiking home from the Etzion settlement bloc south of Jerusalem.

The three were lured in to the car because the kidnappers were dressed as Orthodox Jews and the car bore Israeli license plates, according to police.

Aysha and Kawasme quickly murdered the trio and dumped their bodies in a field near Hebron — leading to an extensive two-week search that indirectly precipitated a war between Hamas in Gaza and Israel over the summer.

An unnamed security official told Israeli news site Walla Thursday that the kidnappers’ original plan was to abduct one or two people and hide them alive in a specially prepared cell behind a West Bank barber shop.

Abducting three people would pose a risk to the kidnappers and likely cause a situation where the victims would be able to overpower their abductors, the official noted.

Kidnapping three, rather than one or two people in the back of their car was not intended, he said.

The ease with which they succeeded in seizing the trio surprised the kidnappers, causing them to change their plans mid-operation.

“In [dumping] their the bodies [without camouflage], they showed us that it was not planned,” the source explained.

“The did not prepare a place to hide the bodies. They simply enveloped them with stones and covered them in soil. When we got there it was relatively easy to find it. There was no subtlety here, none,” he continued.

Although investigators had evidence that the boys had likely been killed from a recording of a phone call made by one of the teens in which shots can be heard, Israeli authorities officially declared them abducted, and launched a long sweep in the West Bank that included the arrests of hundreds of Hamas members.

The search for the boys continued 18 days, with Israelis and Jewish communities around the world demonstrating solidarity with the boys’ families and holding out hope that they would be found alive.

The boys’ dead bodies were found on June 30, and they were buried on July 1, following a joint funeral attended by tens of thousands of mourners.

Abu Aysha and Kawasme were killed in a shootout with IDF forces on September 23.

On December 31, Hamas member Hussam Kawasme was convicted of masterminding the abduction and murders. He was sentenced to three life terms in prison for the murders and ordered by the court to pay $63,000 in compensation to the victims’ families.

Renee Ghert-Zand contributed to this report.