Three Israeli teens murdered as Hamas fires rockets from the Gaza Strip

Hamas has issued a warning to Israel after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to punish the terrorist organization for the deaths of three Israeli teenagers whose bodies were found on June 30.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Hamas retaliated with a statement from their spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri who threatened retaliation from any Isreali attack. "Netanyahu should know that threats don't scare Hamas, and if he wages a war on Gaza, the gates of hell will open on him," Zuhri said.

The Israeli military struck 34 targets across the Gaza Strip overnight, following the launching of more than 20 rockets into Israel from that territory.

"Hamas is responsible and Hamas will pay," Netanyahu vowed. During an emergency meeting of his security cabinet, Netanyahu said that the teenagers "were kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by human animals."

It has also been reported that Israeli troops have flooded into the Palestinian town of Halhul where the bodies of the three kidnapped teenagers were found.

Eyal Yifrah-19, Gilad Shaar-16, and Israeli-American Naftali Fraenkel-16 were the teens that disappeared on June 12 while hitchhiking home from Jewish seminaries where they were studying near the West Bank city of Hebron.

Despite the dangers, hitchhiking is common among Israelis traveling in and out of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The bodies were discovered under a piles of rocks in a field north of Hebron during operation Brother's Keeper, which involved the dispatch of thousands of Israeli troops across the West Bank in search of the youths, closed roads and arrested 400 Hamas operatives throughout he territory.

Israel has identified two well-known Hamas operatives from Hebron as the primary suspects, Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisheh. These men remain on the run, but military officials said the search for them would continue.

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