On June 12, at 10:15 p.m., a trio of Israeli teenagers – Gil-Ad Shaer, Naftali Frenkel, and Eyal Yifrach – who were hitchhiking back to their homes were given a lift by Marwan Qawasmeh and Amar Abu Aisha. The car radio had Israel’s public station on, giving the impression that the occupants were Israelis, but the three boys soon realized their fatal mistake. One of them called 911 and told the dispatcher "We’ve been kidnapped": in the recording – kept secret until now – one can hear gunshots in the background, the cry of someone who has at least been wounded, followed by celebratory singing.
Oddly, the police did not respond to the call until five hours later, when the parents reported them missing.
The authorities immediately issued a gag order on all reporting on the content of the call, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet lied to the Israeli and international public by pretending not to know the boys were almost certainly dead. Even after the kidnappers’ abandoned car was found, splattered with bloodstains that confirmed the killing, the Israeli authorities continued to maintain the fiction that the three were being held for some yet-to-be-disclosed ransom.
The boys, said Netanyahu & Co., had been kidnapped by Hamas in order to extract more concessions from the Israeli government as in the case of Gilad Shalit. The Israeli-Jordanian border was closed, supposedly to prevent the transport of the kidnapped teens. Netanyahu’s wife launched a media campaign on Twitter modeled on Michelle Obama’s #BringBackOurGirls hashtag: "Bring back our boys!"
And of course there was a military complement to the propaganda campaign: although the Israeli government knew the three boys were almost certainly dead, they initiated what they dubbed "Operation Brother’s Keeper." Thousands of IDF soldiers combed the West Bank, ostensibly searching for the kidnapped boys: 560 Palestinians were arrested, with over 200 still being held, and over 2,000 locations – homes, public buildings, even water wells – were searched. Palestinian homes were ransacked and looted. And, naturally, Gaza – Israel’s punching bag – was mercilessly bombed, in tandem with the killing of six young Palestinians by the IDF.
As Israel Pulse points out, when rumors that the boys’ bodies had been found began to circulate, the Israeli authorities held a press conference at which
"IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Moti Almoz adopted a reproachful tone and raised hopes even higher. He said, ‘Both the army and the Shin Bet are working on making new evaluations of the situation in the recent hours and are involved in many operations designed to ensure the safe return of these boys. Regarding the rumors that have spread — these rumors have no basis and are not reliable.’ He didn’t even blink an eye when he said this."
One imagines the authorities were equally unblinking when they lied to the parents of one of the boys, who – after being allowed to listen to the 911 call – were told the shots heard were "blanks"! The government then sent family members to a United Nations conference in which the deceived parents tearfully pleaded for their sons’ return.