Court finds man planned the abduction of Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Sha’er and Naftali Frankel, which led to 50-day Gaza war

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

An Israeli military court has sentenced a Palestinian to life in prison over the killing of three Israeli youths, whose abduction in the occupied West Bank set off a chain of events leading to the 50-day Gaza war last summer.

The court found on Tuesday that Hussam Kawasmeh, a member of Hamas, planned the abduction in which Eyal Yifrach, 19, and Gil-ad Sha’er and Naftali Frankel, both 16, were shot dead while hitchhiking in June.

Kawasmeh was arrested in August and charged with murder. A three-judge panel sentenced him to three life terms, according to a court document released to the media.

Two Hamas operatives suspected of having killed the youngsters after picking them up on a road near a Jewish settlement died in a firefight with Israeli forces at their West Bank hideout in September.

The bodies of the three Israelis were found nearly three weeks after their disappearance.

In an alleged revenge attack in July, a Palestinian teenager, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, was abducted and burned to death in Jerusalem by three suspected Jewish assailants, who have since been charged with his murder.

Khdeir’s death and sweeping arrests by Israel of suspected Hamas fighters across the West Bank led to clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police in East Jerusalem and cross-border rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

A seven-week Gaza war ensued in July and August in which, according to the Palestinian health ministry, more than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed. Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel were also killed.