Thousands mourn at funerals of Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisha, accused over kidnapping that led to war in Gaza

Thousands of mourners have attended the funerals of two Palestinian men suspected of the kidnap and murder of three Israeli teenagers three months ago, an event that triggered a sequence of actions leading to the 50-day war in Gaza.

Marwan Qawasmeh, 29, and Amer Abu Aisha, 32, were shot dead in a pre-dawn gunfight on Tuesday with Israeli special forces who had fired a rocket at a house in Hebron where the pair had been hiding. Three other men were arrested.

Clashes broke out at the men’s funerals in the volatile West Bank city, with around 20 Palestinians reported to have been injured by live fire and rubber-coated bullets. One was in a critical condition, medical officials said.

The governor of Hebron, Kamel Hmeid, said the men had been “executed” by Israel, whose forces made no attempt to detain or interrogate them.

The killing of the men, described by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) as “Hamas terrorists”, briefly threatened to derail talks in Cairo aimed at reaching a long-term ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas following the end of the Gaza war.

“After consultations within the Palestinian delegation and brothers in Gaza and abroad it was decided to continue the Cairo meetings,” said the senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, adding that Israel must not be given any pretext “to escape from commitments” of last month’s truce.

The Israeli military chief of staff, Benny Gantz, said: “On the eve of Rosh Hashanah [the Jewish new year] Operation Brother’s Keeper, which began on 13 June, has ended. We promised the Sha’er, Frankel and Yifrach families we would get the murderers of their sons, and this morning we did it.”

Israeli forces had been hunting the suspects since the teenagers were abducted on 12 June. The bodies of Gil-ad Sha’er and Naftali Frankel, both 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19, were found on 1 July. It emerged then that security forces had believed since the time of the abduction that the youths were dead.

In the aftermath of the kidnapping, Israel launched an operation codenamed Brother’s Keeper, during which more than 400 Palestinians – mostly Hamas members and supporters – were arrested in the West Bank and at least five were killed. A Palestinian teenager was burned to death in Jerusalem in a vigilante revenge killing.

Hamas in Gaza responded to the wave of arrests by firing rockets over the border into Israel. Netanyahu ordered a military offensive on Gaza on 8 July, which lasted until 26 August. At least 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed, and on the Israeli side 66 soldiers and six civilians died.

In a statement issued after Tuesday’s operation in Hebron, the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said: “We said from the start that Hamas is responsible for the kidnapping and murder. As we gathered proof, Hamas admitted it was behind the attack.”

Following the Israeli boys’ abduction, Netanyahu promised to publish the evidence collected by Israeli security forces that he said proved Hamas had ordered the kidnappings, but it has never been disclosed. With the death of the two Palestinian suspects, there can be no trial.

Hamas initially denied any connection to the abductions. But in August, Saleh al-Arouri, a Hamas figure living in Turkey, said Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, had imprisoned the Israeli teenagers. His claim was not supported by other Hamas officials.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal later said that members may have been behind the killings, but that they were not acting on the orders of group’s political leadership. “We learned about these confessions from the Israeli investigation … Hamas political leadership was not aware of all these details,” he said.

On Tuesday, Hamas’s spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri, said: “Hamas praises the role martyrs Abu Aisha and Qawasmeh played in chasing down Israeli settlers and we stress that their assassination will not weaken the resistance.”

Meshaal’s spokesman in Qatar, Hussam Badran, praised the pair on his Twitter account: “The martyrdom of Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisha came after a long life full of jihad sacrifice and giving. This is the path of resistance, which we all are moving in.”

The IDF said a recent breakthrough in the hunt for the two Palestinian men had led the Yamam, a special police counter-terrorism unit, to the hideout in an area of Hebron about a week ago. Early on Tuesday, Israeli special forces entered the ground floor of the two-storey building and killed two Hamas operatives after coming under fire, Lerner said.

Hmeid, said the pair were killed in the Hebron University area. The Hebron governor said: “We condemn this crime, this assassination, as deliberate and premeditated murder”.