Benjamin Netanyahu Calls Mahmoud Abbas To Demand Help on Kidnapped Teens
Image by getty images
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday and said he expected him to help in efforts to find three Israeli teenagers abducted in the occupied West Bank.
“I expect you to help in the return of the kidnapped youngsters and in catching the abductors,” a statement issued by the prime minister’s office quoted Netanyahu as telling Abbas in a telephone call.
On Sunday, Gilad Erdan, a minister in Netanyahu’s security cabinet, told Israeli television that Abbas’s security forces were “willingly” helping search for the teenagers.
A statement on Monday by Abbas’s office made no mention of the conversation with Netanyahu. But it said the “Palestinian presidency condemns … the kidnapping of three Israeli boys and the series of Israeli violations” – a reference to Israeli military raids and arrests since they disappeared on Thursday.
Both leaders have had infrequent telephone conversations in recent years, usually to convey greetings on Jewish and Muslim holidays.
Netanyahu broke off Israel’s peace talks with Abbas in April after the Western-backed leader signed a unity deal with Israel’s bitter enemy, the Hamas Islamist group the runs the Gaza Strip.
On Sunday, Netanyahu said Hamas members had kidnapped the three teenagers. Hamas dismissed what it called Netanyahu’s “stupid comments” and suggested he was trying to draw the group into disclosing whether it was behind the abduction.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
