Palestinians and Israelis have been living in uncertainty in the past three weeks following the murders of three Israeli settlers and Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir. The discovery of the bodies of the three Israeli boys has opened the door to further speculation as to what actually happened, for Israel insists Hamas was responsible, while Hamas continues to deny involvement.

Al-Monitor spoke with a senior Palestinian officer involved in coordination with his Israeli counterparts in the West Bank to answer lingering questions after the boys’ bodies were found and Hamas was accused of kidnapping and killing them. Some of these questions include: How did Israel find the teenagers? Why were they killed? When were they killed? Were they kidnapped to be used in an exchange deal, or were they kidnapped to be killed? Was Hamas’ leadership involved in the details of the operation, or did Hamas just issue general directives?

“From the outset, we were convinced that the settlers were killed immediately after being kidnapped. That’s because of several considerations, most importantly is that holding them for a swap deal was impossible due to the lack of a logistical infrastructure. The security estimate was that the plan was to kidnap just one soldier or settler, not three, because of the difficulty of holding them for a long period of time. Hamas had done similar operations, such as the kidnapping and killing of the two soldiers Avi Sasportas and Ilan Saadoun in the Gaza Strip in late 1989, and the officer Nassim Toledano in the West Bank in late 1992. The soldiers were held for several days and then killed and their bodies kept,” the officer said.

Al-Hayat Al-Jadida newspaper, a Palestinian Authority outlet, said that the Hebron operation was a “local operation and Hamas’ leadership in Gaza is not linked to it.”