The investigation began seven hours after the boys were kidnapped, due to the failure of the police to operate accordingly, to respond to one of the boys' desperate plea for help or to track the call in the hours that followed.
The Shin Bet relied on two means of intelligence and two spheres of search over the last 19 days: They employed human intelligence (Shin Bet case officers, sources in the field, using agents and collaborators, and forensic evidence) and signet (wiretapping and analysis of data). Based on the lack of forensics aside from the burnt car abandoned by the kidnappers, and to the fact that there were no claims of responsibility from any individual or organization, the Shin Bet did not have even the slightest evidence to assess that the three were still alive.
Based on that assessment, the Shin Bet opened two spheres of search: one to locate the kidnappers and the other to locate the teens – or their bodies.
Security forces raided Hebron, near the site of the kidnapping and the believed home base of the kidnappers. The Shin Bet had listed Marwan Kwasame and Amar Abu Aysha as prime suspects within three days of the kidnapping, after learning that the two Hamas militants had disappeared just hours before the incident. Both have a history of militancy in the Hebron area, and both have been arrested in Israel in the past.
The Israeli forces turned homes upside down by the dozen, arrested hundreds of Hamas operatives and suspects, and searched in the river valleys and farms surrounding the area for some evidence of eithers' whereabouts.
The Shin Bet managed to narrow down the huge swath of land near Hebron to the exact spot where they found the boys' bodies at about 6 P.M. on Monday evening, but they still have not managed to track down the kidnappers. The manhunt is still underway, and the Shin Bet is certain it will manage to locate them. It believes that the kidnappers have not managed to escape the West Bank or even find refuge in the northern part of the territory, and estimates that they are still hiding in the Hebron area.
Two main questions, aside from the kidnappers' location, remain. The first is whether the kidnappers intended all along to abduct and kill, or whether they panicked in their attempt to bargain their hostages for a prisoner release and shot their victims in the head after one of the boys made a desperate call to the police hotline and whispered, "They kidnapped me."
As neither Kwasame nor Abu Aysha hold particularly high ranks in the Hamas, the second question is whether they carried out the kidnapping on their own accord, believing it to be their obligations as members of the Islamist organization, or if they were ordered to do so from the higher ranks.
The riddle can only be solved once the kidnappers have been found and the other Hamas operatives detained in the last week and a half of raids have been interrogated. The search for the kidnappers will continue and so will the overnight raids in Hebron.
Infographic created by Haaretz
Meanwhile, a fierce second front has erupted on the Gaza border. Some 70 rockets have been fired at the Gaza border communities since Operation Brother's Keeper began, the most severe of which struck a factory in the southern city of Sderot and ignited a massive fire.
The rocket attacks have been carried out mostly by splinter militant groups like an offshoot of the Palestinian Resistance Committees, and not by Hamas, exploiting Israel's second volatile front as its security and intelligence forces are focused on the West Bank.
Regardless of who is launching the rockets, Israel holds Hamas responsible for every attack, whether launched by those loyal to the ruling movement or rebel factions who refuse its authority.
The Israel Defense Forces has responded with harsh strikes on the coastal territory, killing more than half a dozen militants on their way to carry out a rocket attack. As the situation around the Gaza Strip continues, the IDF is intensifying its operation, with a focus on targeted assassinations in addition to pinpointed hits on the lower-level militants firing the rockets.
Israel's security cabinet convened late Monday after the bodies were found to determine further course of action, a meeting that was followed immediately by a new round of air strikes on Gaza. Former deputy minister of strategic affairs, Tzachi Hanegbi, has said it is not clear how many of Hamas' leaders will remain alive following the IDF strikes.
The trained eyes of Israel's defense establishment are on alert to threats from both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and to the developments in its neighbors to the north, Iraq and Syria. After a near two-year period of calm, escalation has resumed. Israel has made it clear that it will not tolerate any attacks on its territory or its citizens, and will use its mighty hand to stop them.
Israel's political goal, from the beginning of the operation, was to convince Mahmoud Abbas to annul the Palestinian Authority's partnership with its former rival Hamas. With the recent barrage of rockets from Gaza, Israel is using the opportunity to take the matter into its own hand and strike Hamas in its heartland. The Palestinian factions acting on their own and firing rockets will only encourage a harsher Israeli response.
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