The Israel Defense Forces immediately initiated Operation Brother's Keeper (Hebrew: מבצע שובו אחים, romanized: Mivtza Shuvu Ahim) in search of the three teenagers.

The incident gained significant international attention and escalated tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, leading to an increase in violence and retaliatory actions and eventually triggering the 2014 Gaza War.

After this suspect fell back into the home, likely dead, Israeli forces again opened fire on the house, utilizing grenades and other explosives this time, after which both men were confirmed deceased.

"[53] The investigation concluded that the kidnapping operation's costs ran to NIS220,000, a sum procured by Hossam Hassan Kawasmeh (40), with the assistance of his brother, Mahmoud, who was exiled to the Gaza Strip in the Gilad Shalit exchange in November 2011, to purchase the two vehicles and weaponry.

The plot of land where they were buried had been purchased to that end some time earlier, and a refuge to escape detection had been prepared in an old house near Tufah where the two suspects hid in a disused cesspit for five days.

[95][102] Netanyahu's approach was interpreted by some opponents as aimed at driving a wedge between Fatah and Hamas in order to break up the reconciliation between the two negotiated in April 2014,[103] thereby discrediting both Abbas and his government, which had been backed by Western countries.

[104] PA sources noted that Hamas, in the unity negotiations, had undertaken to desist from attacks and bloodshed, and if its involvement were proven, it would be a breach of the agreement that would render the reconciliation null and void,[105] a point repeated later in the week by the Palestinian Foreign Minister.

In particular the Balata refugee camp and the village of Awarta were scoured in what a spokesman called '"cleaning house" in the "terror capital of Nablus"', and a further 41 Palestinians were detained, among them the manager of the Hamas-run television channel Al-Aqsa TV, bringing the number of arrests to 200.

[109] Egyptian sources stated the same day that Israel had requested their assistance, and that President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had issued directives to his security services to undertake negotiations with all parties.

In six days, government sources announced, they had searched 800 structures, including the Al-Aqsa radio station in Ramallah and the Hebron-based TransMedia communications company, both linked to Hamas.

[116] Moshe Ya'alon outlawed West Bank activities of the British Muslim charity, Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) because some of its offices employed Hamas members.

"[106][130] On Friday night, Israeli security spokesmen said the "noose was tightening" as troops were concentrated near Hebron, with intelligence officials confident that attempts to move the youths to either Jordan, Gaza, or the Sinai had failed.

[133] According to Palestinian reports, an elderly man, Ali Abed Jabir, either died during an altercation with Israeli troops who broke into his home while ransacking houses in the village of Haris, or was denied passage for medical treatment after suffering a heart attack.

[137] In the village of al-Bireh, several houses were ransacked, and soldiers broke into the Noon Center for Islamic Studies and the Palmedia TC company where they confiscated computers and damaged furniture.

[168] On 30 June, a search team located the bound bodies of the three boys on land purchased recently by the Qawasmeh family[73] in an open field near Khirbet Aranava in the Wadi Tellem area, between Halhul and Karmei Tzur, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) west of the former, just north of Hebron.

An IDF spokesperson said the man had thrown a grenade at the troops, while his family maintained he had been carrying eggs home for suhoor, the predawn meal during the fast of Ramadan.

[178] Public opinion in the nation is strongly divided, with, for example, the newspaper Haaretz editorializing that the "soft Gaza sand... could turn into quicksand" and warning about the "wholesale killing" of Palestinian civilians.

On 20 August, Hamas official Saleh Al-'Arouri spoke at the conference of the International Union of Muslim Scholars in Istanbul, where he said the group's military wing was responsible for the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens, saying it was an expression of popular will.

Stating Hamas's opposition to killing civilians, he said the leadership had no advance knowledge of the abduction, which he regarded as a legitimate act by a frustrated people living under occupation, and that it had only learnt of its details from Israeli investigations.

On 11 July 2014, a series of bills in the United States Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives was launched, attempting to solve the boys' murder, based upon Yaakov Naftali Fraenkel's dual US-Israeli citizenship.

[184] On Day 7, The Palestinian Authority declared that the Israeli modus operandi of clamping down on towns with closures and continual arrest of Hamas members constituted collective punishment.

"[187] In July 2014, the Geneva International Centre for Justice sent an urgent appeal to protest against the imminent house demolition of the homes of the extended families of the suspects and of Husam Ali Al Qawasmeh.

[109] The difficulty confronting the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which has an ongoing debate on the issue, is the coordination between the PNA and Israeli security services, which makes executing such operations difficult.

[109] Several prior incidents, such as the killings of Givati soldier Gal "Gavriel" Kobi and Baruch Mizrahi, a police intelligence officer, displayed exceptional, high-level skills, strict compartmentalization, and careful preparations for an escape route, features shared by the kidnapping.

[59] A week into the search for the missing youth, Avi Issacharoff cast doubts on the premise for West Bank operations, which in his view 'targeted the weak'—since Hamas has neither a large or strong presence there—and argued that the operational order, if there was one, came from either Gaza, or abroad, perhaps Ankara-based deportee Saleh al-Arouri, or Khaled Mashal, who appeared to hint a month earlier in replying to a letter from an imprisoned Hamas leader, after Netanyahu reneged on releasing a fourth group of Palestinian prisoners,[186] that the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades would be his reply.

[190][193] The normal Israeli practice is one where drivers pull up, declaring their destination, and, by their accent, allowing potential hikers at trempiada (hitchhiking stations) an opportunity to examine the clues before they accept or decline a lift.

[190] The practice however remains widespread among the dati leumi community of religious Zionists for several reasons: many of them, as in this case, have children boarding in West Bank settlements, where public transport facilities are poor.

One of the organizers stated the social media effort "is simply a cry out to the world to bring those boys back," adding that "We're only trying to do whatever we can to help the international community to put pressure to release those kids.

[227] On Friday Palestinians of Osarin near Nablus in the West Bank complained that one of them, 22-year-old Tariq Ziad Zuhdi Adeli, had been sprayed with a gas by settlers, abducted in a car, taken outside the village and then sustained injuries from a hatchet attack to his legs.

[246] A Palestinian group mounted a video on YouTube parodying the abduction, in a fictional scenario featuring an "Abu Saqer el Khalili Brigades, the Kick Ass Branch," apparently taking the event to be an Israeli plot with Arab complicity while mocking Islamic extremism.