IDF’s 8-day sweep for teens causes first 2 Palestinians deaths

Mass funerals took place Saturday for the two Palestinians shot dead in Kalandia near Jerusalem and Dura south of Hebron Friday night while attacking Israeli military searchers with bottle bombs and stones.
In a TV interview Saturday night, Finance Minister Yair Lapid said that the three goals of Operation Borther’s Keeper are unchanged: To free Naftali Frankel, Gil-ad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrach, who were abducted June 12 in Gush Etzion; smash Hamas and break up the Palestinian unity government.

Lapid said there would be adjustments in the operation for the Muslim month of Ramadan which starts in a week’s time. The minister praised the courage of Mahmoud Abbas for saying in front of the Arab League that the kidnapping was a bad thing. He also commended Palestinian Authority security forces’ cooperation with the IDF in the broad search for the teenagers. 

In Ramallah, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said if Hamas proved to have been behind the abductions, President Abbas would make radical decisions about the future of their recent reconciliation deal.