JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday blamed the militant Palestinian movement Hamas for the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers, as Israel's military closed off part of the southern West Bank after arresting 80 people overnight.
"The kidnapping was carried out by Hamas members," Netanyahu said in a rare English statement aimed at galvanizing international attention. "We know that for a fact."
The prime minister said the "attack should surprise no one" because "Hamas is committed to the destruction of Israel and to carrying out terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians -- including children." Israel holds President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority responsible, Netanyahu said.
The Israeli military mobilization in the southern West Bank to search for the three teenagers threatened to further destabilize Israeli-Palestinian relations, which were already strained by Abbas' formation of a new government this month after reconciling with the Islamist Hamas.
Though the Palestinian Authority's security forces have cooperated with Israel in the search for the kidnappers, Hamas' leaders have been celebrating the abduction as an act of resistance against Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory.
The teenagers -- Eyal Yifrach, 19, and Gilad Shaar and Naftali Frankel, both 16 -- were last heard from Thursday night as they tried to hitchhike home from Jewish settlements in the West Bank where they study.
Officials confirmed that one of the teens called a police emergency line around 10:25 p.m. and said, "We've been kidnapped." They have not been heard from since then.
In an emotional statement broadcast Sunday on the radio, Frankel's mother, Rachel Frankel, spoke directly to her son, who holds both Israeli and U.S. citizenship.
"Naftali, Mom and Dad and your brothers love you to no end," she said. "You should know that the people of Israel are turning worlds to bring you home.
"The professional people will do their job, and we do trust them. And everybody else, if you could please pray with us. We trust that Eyal and Gilad and Naftali ... will be here with us and we'll hug them soon."
The case has riveted the nation's attention, receiving around-the-clock coverage in local media. Late Sunday, more than 10,000 people converged at Jerusalem's Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, for a special mass prayer, police said.
Two little-known groups made dubious claims of responsibility for the kidnapping over the weekend.
Netanyahu did not publicly cite evidence for his definitive assertion that Hamas was responsible for the kidnappings.
But Palestinian militants repeatedly have threatened to kidnap Israelis, hoping to use them as bargaining chips to win the release of prisoners held by Israel. This would be the first time three civilians have been taken at the same time.
Military officials said that given the nature of the kidnapping, evidence pointed to Hamas involvement. A senior Israeli military intelligence officer said only the "most institutionalized cells ... promote suicide bombers attacks and kidnapping." Asked whether this could refer to other groups beside Hamas, Lt. Col Peter Lerner said, "No."
In a Facebook post, a Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, called the accusation "stupid" and said that the arrests "are meant to weaken Hamas but they will never succeed."
Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and a close aide to Abbas, said Netanyahu only wanted to "seem as the victim for the international community."
"Now he wants to hold us responsible for something we're definitely not responsible for," Abed Rabbo said on the Voice of Palestine radio station after Netanyahu's statement Sunday morning. "No one in the world believes that the PA or the reconciliation government is responsible. Everybody knows who is responsible and continues to ignite fire in the region."
Israel has roundly rejected the new Palestinian government as "backed by Hamas" and has criticized the United States and Europe for working with the authority despite the reconciliation pact.
"You remember that Israel warned the international community about the dangers of endorsing the Fatah-Hamas unity pact," Netanyahu said Sunday, referring to Abbas' secular Fatah faction. "The dangers of that pact now should be abundantly clear to all."
He said that there had been an increase in "terrorist activity emanating from the West Bank" since the April reconciliation.
"This will not advance peace; it will advance terror," he said.
But Qadura Fares, the Palestinians' former minister of prisoner affairs, said that "the kidnapping is the result of the peace-process stalemate," and that both Netanyahu and Hamas leaders were trying to use it to "make political gains."
Despite the exchange of accusations, security officials from Israel and Abbas' forces have been cooperating closely in the West Bank trying to find the kidnappers.
Abbas met with his security chiefs late Saturday and urged them to do anything they can to contribute to the search, said a senior Palestinian official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to brief journalists.
In a statement issued Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry said that Hamas appeared to have had a role in the kidnapping.
"We are still seeking details on the parties responsible for this despicable terrorist act, although many indications point to Hamas' involvement," Kerry said. "As we gather this information, we reiterate our position that Hamas is a terrorist organization known for its attacks on innocent civilians and which has used kidnapping in the past."
Kerry also said that the United States was offering its "full support" for Israel in its search for the missing teenagers. He added that the United States had encouraged "full cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian security services," which Kerry said was "ongoing."
At Mekor Haim, the West Bank yeshiva where Frankel and Shaar studied, about 200 of their classmates, teachers and people from the surrounding settlements spent nearly two hours reciting psalms Sunday in a special service with a mood of mourning. Many men and teenage boys were wrapped in prayer shawls and wept openly as the rabbis told them that it was a time for prayer, not speeches, and that "God can reverse the will."
But several Israeli politicians portrayed the kidnapping as proof that the new Palestinian government had opened the door to terrorism.
"Israel holds Palestinian President Abbas directly responsible for the three boys," Naftali Bennett, the right-wing economy minister, said after visiting the Frankel family in Nof Ayalon, a small community of about 2,500 mostly Orthodox Jews between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Danny Danon, the deputy defense minister, said in a statement that "a red line has been crossed" and promised that "our government will extract a heavy price from the Palestinian leadership."
The Palestinian Authority "cannot claim clean hands," Yuval Steinitz, a minister from Netanyahu's Likud Party, said on Israel radio. "No one here gets an exemption. If the abduction comes from PA territory, it is responsible. If it was executed by Hamas, which is represented in the PA government, the PA is responsible."
In Egypt, a senior security official said Egyptian National Security was working through a third Palestinian party to help resolve the crisis. Egyptian authorities are in contact with Palestinian militant groups through intermediaries, since the Egyptian government does not maintain direct contact with Hamas. The official said the three Israelis were still believed to be in the West Bank.
Information for this article was contributed by Jodi Rudoren, Fares Akram, Rina Castelnuovo and Michael R. Gordon of The New York Times and by Josef Federman and Yousur Alhlou of The Associated Press.
A Section on 06/16/2014