'We'll turn membership of Hamas into a ticket to Hell': Palestinians' homes trashed as Israeli troops make 40 new arrests in hunt for three 'kidnapped' Jewish teenagers



Troops sweep through West Bank towns and cities as they continue search

Gaza city residents wake to damage from fourth night of aerial bombardment

Hamas denies accusations that it is behind the kidnapping of three youths

Israel threatens to perform 'root canal' to remove Hamas from West Bank

Newspapers say it is using chance to damage Palestinian unity government



Palestinians were today picking up the pieces of their trashed homes after Israeli troops swept through the West Bank in the hunt for three missing Jewish teenagers.

Soldiers charged into homes in cities and refugee camps across the eastern Palestinian territory, turning over furniture and taking away 41 suspected Hamas members.

To the east, in Gaza, homes and workplaces were shattered by a fourth straight night of Israeli air force bombardment after militants fired rockets into Israeli territory.

A Palestinian inspects her ruined house following a raid by Israeli soldiers in Balata refugee camp, the West Bank

Soldiers charged into homes in cities and refugee camps across the eastern Palestinian territory overnight and today, turning over furniture and taking away 41 suspected Hamas members

A boy climbs over furniture pulled down and smashed by the invading Israeli forces in the Balata camp

Israeli forces have so far arrested around 200 Palestinians, most of them members of Hamas, as it conducts a vast search operation for the three students, two of them minors, who disappeared last week.

They accuse Hamas of kidnapping the three youths after they left their religious school in a Jewish settlement in the occupied territory on Thursday.

While neither claiming nor denying responsibility, Hamas has commented that abductions were a justified response to the plight of thousands of Palestinians - many of them children - held in Israel.

The Palestinian Information Ministry accused Israel of inflicting collective punishment with its West Bank dragnet - a charge echoed by several international human rights groups.

Israel has said it does not know if Gil-Ad Shaer and U.S.-Israeli national Naftali Fraenkel, both aged 16, and Eyal Yifrah, 19, are alive or what their captors' demands might be.

At its meeting on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet agreed to make more arrests, put up roadblocks and turn Palestinian houses into military observation posts to increase pressure on Hamas, which seeks the Jewish state's destruction.

An Israeli official said ministers had also debated a proposal to deport West Bank Hamas leaders to Gaza.

Israeli officials acknowledged the operation was two-fold - recovering the missing teenagers and weakening Hamas.

Palestinians in the rubble of their father's destroyed metal workshop after it was hit by a missile strike from an Israeli f16 in the north-east Gaza City in the early hours of this morning

Israel said its Israeli F16 warplane struck three weapons manufacturing and storage sites, following overnight rocket fire from the coastal strip into Israeli territory

Earlier, the army said it had detained 41 Hamas militants in overnight raids, raising to more than 200 the number arrested since Friday.



Those arrested included the speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Aziz Dweik, a senior Hamas figure, who taken in the night from his home in Hebron, the West Bank.

Hours earlier, a 19-year-old Palestinian, Ahmed Ararat, was shot in the chest and killed as Israeli soldiers stormed the Jalazoun refugee camp north of Ramallah.

Israeli soldiers arrest the Palestinian parliament Speaker Aziz Dweik, a senior Hamas figure, from his home in Hebron, the West Bank, last night. Large numbers of Israeli soldiers also raided Nablus and its surroundings

Israeli soldiers patrol in Hebron early this morning as the hunt continues for three missing Israeli youths

At a meeting of the Israeli security cabinet yesterday, ministers decided to expand moves against Hamas in order to smash its political and social infrastructure in the West Bank, officials said.

A series of punitive steps aimed at decapitating Hamas in the West Bank were discussed, including the possibility of banishing its senior members to Gaza and demolishing their West Bank homes, Israeli media reports said.

'As long as our boys remain abducted, Hamas will feel pursued, paralysed and threatened,' said Lieutenant Peter Lerner, the military's official spokesman.

'We are committed to resolving the kidnapping and debilitating Hamas terrorist capacities, its infrastructure and its recruiting institutions,' he said in a statement seen by Reuters.

A Palestinian man inspect the damage at a metal workshop in Gaza hit by an overnight Israeli air strike

A woman stares at the floor as she takes her children past Israeli soldiers at a Hebron checkpoint

An Israeli soldier stops orders two Palestinians from their car for a security check near Hebron

An Israeli soldier from an army dog unit stops a Palestinian for a security check at a checkpoint near Hebron

An Israeli army bulldozer pours earth on a concrete barrier to block access to a Palestinian village

Reports on Israeli Defence Force radio struck a belligerent tone. 'Israel has decided to perform a root canal to uproot everything green in the West Bank,' said one, referring to the colour representing Hamas.

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, who was at the meeting, told army radio that Israel had decided to 'dramatically' change its approach to the Islamist movement.

'We will bring about a situation in which Hamas people will become a nuisance for the Palestinian population, and that their presence in Judaea and Samaria (the West Bank) will cause harm everywhere,' he said.

'In other words we will turn membership in Hamas into an entry ticket to hell.'

Israeli army soldiers take up positions during a search operation in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin

More soldiers in Jenin. Israeli forces shot dead one Palestinian teenager yesterday at another refugee camp

A Palestinian youth is treated in a hospital after he was wounded during clashes with Israeli soldiers in Jenin

Palestinians carry the body of 19-year-old Ahmad Arafat after he was shot dead by Israeli troops in Jalazoun refugee camp as they swept through the area hunting for the missing teens Palestinian Sunni fundamentalist group Hamas was founded in 1987, during the First Intifada uprising against Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian Territories.

FACEBOOK PAGE CALLS ON ISRAEL TO SLAUGHTER PALESTINIANS Nearly 20,000 people have shown their support for a Facebook page calling for Israeli forces to kill a Palestinian 'terrorist' every hour until three missing Jewish teenagers are returned.

The page, in Hebrew, which features images of Palestinian men behind crosshairs, was started a day after the trio disappeared while hitchhiking in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory.

It appeals to Israelis to eliminate 'terrorists' until the teenagers are found, the International Business Times reports.

It has ruled the Gaza strip since winning a decisive majority in elections in 2007, but the rival Fatah movement retained control of the West Bank. The two parties remained at odds until a recent reconciliation led to the swearing in of a Palestinian unity government last week.

Israeli newspaper pundits said Israel was using the opportunity of the kidnapping to bring about the collapse of the newly-formed unity government, which has been furiously denounced by Netanyahu.

Writing in the top-selling Yediot Aharonot, Alex Fishman said the kidnapping had created a 'one-time operational opportunity' which Israel would use 'to castrate' Hamas and suppress its 'strongholds in Palestinian Authority territory to the greatest extent possible.'

By crushing Hamas's infrastructure, it would weaken the movement ahead of Palestinian elections which under the unity deal are supposed to take place before the end of the year, Fishman said.

'Removing the political leadership from the West Bank is supposed to weaken Hamas in advance of the Palestinian presidential elections,' he said.

Writing in Haaretz, Amos Harel agreed. 'The purpose of the Israeli actions ... is to drive a wedge between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and stop the reconciliation process that began some two months ago,' he wrote.