Israel has accused Hamas militants of abducting three Israeli teenagers who went missing from the West Bank.<br /><br />Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet that those responsible came from the same organisation that formed a Palestinian Unity government. <br /><br />The two 16-year-olds and a 19-year-old, one of whom Israel says also holds US citizenship, went missing on Thursday as they reportedly tried to hitch-hike back from lessons.<br /><br />One Hamas spokesman dismissed Israel’s accusations as “stupid”.<br /><br />Other Palestinian officials say they are helping in the search.<br /><br />“There is a failure in Israel’s security system, because the people went missing in a zone which is totally secured and controlled by the Israeli authorities. They were in a strategic area which has Israeli military camps,” said Abbas Zaki, an official with the Fatah movement.<br /><br />Israeli media say the teenagers disappeared near Gush Etzion, a block of Jewish settlements between the predominantly Palestinian towns of Bethlehem and Hebron.<br /><br />Israel’s military said it had detained around 80 Palestinian suspects as it carried out house-to-house searches in the Hebron area.<br /><br />Some 2,500 soldiers have been mobilised in the search, in the biggest such operation in the West Bank for years.<br /><br />The crisis has put the biggest strain on Israeli-Palestinian relations since the power-sharing deal was struck between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in April.
