Three 16-year-old boarding school students were detained Sunday on suspicion of having sexually abused three of their fellow students. According to Shai district police, the threes are suspected of various sex crimes, extortion, assault, drug solicitation and false imprisonment.

A court remanded the teenagers in custody on Sunday day. They will face an additional remand hearing at the Petah Tikva Magistrates Court later on Monday. Police described the violations as being "of utmost gravity" and said more arrests are forthcoming.

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Detectives first learned of the case from a complaint against three students who allegedly abused one of their schoolmates at a boarding school in the Jordan Rift Valley in central Israel . An inquiry into the matter revealed what they described as a "regime of terror and fear put in place by the suspects, acts more becoming of prison inmates than school students."

As the investigation progressed, police came upon evidence that two other students were subjected to abuse, including imprisonment in their rooms for extended periods of time. According to the police, the acts represented "bullying for its own sake", and were not triggered by arguments or tensions between groups of students.

Police are set to examine how the abuse could have gone on under the noses of the educational staff at the institution, and whether there were oversights by school officials.

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