Azulay left behind his wife Ruth, parents and siblings. The reserve soldier, an engineering equipment operator in the Southern Command Engineering Unit, fell in battle in southern Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, after fighting terrorists who attempted to kidnap him. Security forces in the area opened fire on the terrorists, hit several of them and thwarted the kidnapping. He is the 31st casualty from Samaria Regional Council in the war.

Abraham grew up in Elazar settlement, arrived at Yitzhar settlement as a teenager, established a Hebrew labor company, married and built his home at Shaked Farm in the Yitzhar Hills. He was among dozens of Yitzhar residents who came to assist the IDF in the Gaza Strip operating heavy mechanical engineering equipment.

Abraham is the third fallen soldier from Yitzhar settlement in the Iron Swords War. About a year and a half ago, soldier Staff Sergeant Yehonatan Lober fell in battle in southern Gaza Strip, and about 8 months ago, soldier Sergeant Shneur Zalman Cohen fell in northern Gaza Strip.

"He was among our finest sons"

Samaria Regional Council Head Yossi Dagan eulogized him, saying, "Abraham, may his memory be blessed, was a hero, a true pioneer, a builder of hills and farms, worked in preparation and development of farms and road paving in Samaria, devoted entirely to settling the Land of Israel and defending the Land of Israel, came to Samaria as a teenager to build Samaria and was among our finest sons who build the hills with courage and love."

"Abraham is the 31st fallen soldier in the Iron Swords War in the council, gave his life for the people and the land, while doing what he loved and believed in – building the land. The Samaria Regional Council family will accompany beloved Ruth, with everything she needs from the settlement family in Samaria and the entire Yitzhar community mourns and embraces the Azulay families."

Gilad Ach, company commander, eulogized him, saying, "Abraham Azulay served as a sniper in the company I commanded in the first months of the war, a strong young man who always strived to be at the heart of action, always with ideas for improvement. With the beginning of the attack on Lebanon and the destruction of enemy villages adjacent to the fence in October 2024, he offered himself and his capabilities to remove the murderous threat of Hezbollah from northern communities. He could not bear the fact that he was not drafted. Values-driven, strong, with countless abilities, connected to the land – thus he lived and thus he fell on his watch. Your friends and commanders from the 7106th Support Company love you."

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The IDF disclosed Sunday that the families of hostages Sergeant Ron Sherman, Corporal Nik Beizer, and Elia Toledano – who were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip on October 7 from the Nova rave – have been officially informed of the news that their loved ones were killed as a result of IDF fire, months after their bodies were found.

Military officials briefed the families on the findings of an investigation, providing the first confirmation that the hostages died due to an IDF strike.

At that time, it was reported that the pathological examination could not conclusively determine the cause of death for two of the hostages. The IDF has now presented the families with key findings from the pathological report and details surrounding the recovery of the bodies. Military officials emphasized to the bereaved families that during the operation in the underground area where the strike occurred, there was no intelligence indicating the presence of hostages at the location.

The remains of two of the deceased were retrieved from a Hamas tunnel during an IDF operation in Jabalia on December 14, 2023, alongside Toledano's body. Just two days prior, the bodies of Eden Zacharia and Staff Sergeant Ziv Dado, who fell victim to Hamas on October 7, were recovered from the same vicinity.

Initially, it was stated that the pathological examination could not definitively determine the cause of death for two of the hostages. The IDF has now presented the bereaved families with crucial findings from the pathological report and details surrounding the recovery operation. Military officials stressed to the families that during the operation in the underground area where the strike occurred, there was no intelligence suggesting the presence of hostages at the site.

In close proximity to where the bodies were discovered, the IDF had targeted a tunnel that led to the elimination of Ahmed Ghandour, the commander of the Northern Brigade of Gaza. The investigation uncovered that during the strike, the IDF had no knowledge of hostages in the area. The forces stumbled upon the bodies during tunnel searches, without any prior intelligence about their whereabouts.

The forensic report revealed no signs of physical trauma or gunshot wounds on the bodies, indicating they were not killed by direct impact from the strike. Given the condition of the remains, the precise cause of death could not be established.

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An Israeli citizen was abducted during a visit to Ethiopia's Gondar region last week, the Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday evening.

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Jerusalem told Hebrew media that officials were working with Interpol on the matter. Additionally, the Israeli consul in Addis Ababa is said to be in contact with local authorities to "bring about the release of the Israeli citizen as soon as possible, safe and sound."

Video: Reuters

According to reports, the 79-year-old abductee had sent a voicemail to his family saying, "Help me. I'm in the middle of the jungle. It's raining hard. Help me… This trouble I wouldn't wish upon my enemies."

He reportedly also called on family members to collect ransom money, leading Israeli officials to believe the background is criminal.

Israel does not currently advise against travel to the Horn of Africa country's Amhara region, which includes Gondar, but the US State Department warns of "sporadic violent conflict and civil unrest" there.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Democratic and Republican United States senators announced legislation Thursday that would impose sanctions on Iran over an alleged plot by Iranian intelligence agents to kidnap Iranian-born US journalist Masih Alinejad.

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Democrat Ben Cardin and Republican Pat Toomey said their legislation would seek to hold Iran accountable for the plot and prevent any further attempted kidnappings on US soil.

US prosecutors charged four Iranian operatives in July with plotting to kidnap Alinejad, a journalist who was critical of Tehran. The US Treasury department said in September it had sanctioned the operatives behind the failed plot.

"If you dare to attempt to come to our nation and kidnap an American citizen, there will be dire consequences," Cardin told a news conference with Toomey and Alinejad. She said she came out of hiding for the event at the US Capitol.

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Days after entering prison to serve a sentence for accepting bribes, exploitation, attempted extortion, tax evasion, and money laundering, leader of the Shuvu Banim Hassidic sect Rabbi Eliezer Berland admitted a connection to two 30-year-old murder cases, then fainted in court, Israel National News reported.

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Berland's wife, Tehila, was also detained for questioning.

According to the report, Berland connected himself to the murders of Nissim Shitrit and Avi Edri in 1986 and 1990, respectively. In mid-October, three suspects – two men and a woman, all in their 60s – were arrested in connection with the killings, police reported after a gag order was lifted.

Shitrit, a resident of Jerusalem who was a student at a yeshiva in Ashdod, disappeared in January 1986 and was last seen in the car of a person known as Mike, whom he had met a week earlier. A few weeks before he vanished, Shitrit filed a police complaint that he had been abducted and severely beaten by the Shuvu Banim modesty squads after they accused him of having relationships with girls.

Edri, who was 41 at the time of his death, worked as a taxi driver and a maintenance man at Shuvu Banim Yeshiva. His body was found in Ramot Forest and bore signs of violence. He was murdered after a night out with his wife. Even at the time of his murder, police thought he had been killed by members of the modesty patrol, who suspected him of involvement with married Haredi women.

While Berland was being questioned on Monday, a group of his followers held a protest outside the police station at the Russian Compound in Jerusalem.

Also on Monday, police arrested two additional suspects in the affair, both residents of Jerusalem. The two, one of whom in in his 60s and the second in his 70s, were questioned by the Major Crimes Unit of the Jerusalem District Police. The Jerusalem Magistrates Court has extended their remand until Thursday.

Police suspect that one of the suspects served as a driver for a woman who is suspected of involvement in Shitrit's disappearance.

As developments in the long-cold cases continue to emerge, police have made a number of arrests. Last week, Channel 12 News reported that one of the suspects has agreed in writing to cooperate with police and supply them with incriminating evidence against other suspects in exchange for reduced charges against himself, as well as more lenient sentencing.

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Despite warnings from the Shin Bet security agency and the state comptroller, a senior official from the Israeli Civil Administration that governs Judea and Samaria with knowledge of sensitive information has been kidnapped by the Palestinian Authority for a second time. This is according to an investigation by right-wing activist group Ad Kan, the details of which have been confirmed by Israel Hayom.

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Nidal al-Atari, a Palestinian who leaves near the West Bank city of Nablus, is a Defense Ministry employee tasked with examining all real-estate transactions in Judea and Samaria for the Israeli Civil Administration. Al-Atari is the right-hand man of Civil Administration Justice and Land Registration Staff Officer Tomer Carmi, whose authorization is required for any such transaction.

Around two weeks ago, Carmi approved al-Atari's request to take homes files on around 30 real-estate transactions as he had been unable to finish the work from his office. The following day, al-Atari was taken for investigation by the Palestinian Authority in Jericho, and he has not been back at work since.

As no copies, digital or otherwise, of the files in al-Atari's possession exist, the Civil Administration no longer has any evidence of the existence of these real-estate transactions. This could result in losses amounting to millions of shekels for those parties involved as well as expose the Defense Ministry to tort claims. In addition, the fact that the files, which include the names of those selling the land, some of whom have collaborated with Israel, are now in the PA's hands could put the sellers' lives in danger.

The last time al-Atari was kidnapped by Palestinian forces, he was tortured and went missing for months.

Despite al-Atari having clearly given information to the PA and warnings from the Shin Bet and the state comptroller that due to the sensitive information he had access to al-Atari would be a target for blackmail, the Civil Administration decided to promote him to a more senior position.

In a statement, the office of the Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Ghasan Alyan said: "The subject is still under review by professionals in the Civil Administration, with the relevant officials in the Palestinian Authority. The employee is not involved in transactions involving Israelis, therefore there are no concerns information on land sales to Israelis could be leaked.

Right-wing politicians were quick to criticize the incident.

Yamina MK Amichai Chikli tweeted: "This publication is earth-shattering. A senior employee of the Civil Administration in possession of sensitive material was kidnapped by the PA. The significance: The Civil Administration that de facto runs Judea and Samaria has an intelligence breach and is being influenced from the inside by the PA. This cannot be ignored. I will demand an urgent discussion of the issue at the [Knesset] Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee."

Likud MK May Golan told Israel Hayom: "This is a huge failure by the Civil Administration. Following the publication by Ad Kan, it has come to the public's attention that a Palestinian citizen with a senior role in the Civil Administration has been kidnapped by the PA over sensitive information in his possession. It is strictly forbidden to allow the administration's control of the territories in Judea and Samaria to be at the mercy of the PA. Forbidden. I will submit an urgent proposal on the subject. I will not allow the head of the government of crooks to get out of giving answers on such an important and critical subject."

Far-right Otzma Yehudit party head Itamar Ben-Gvir said: "This is a security failure that abandons classified information to the enemy. The finger must be pointed at the Civil Administration, which collaborated with the enemy and did not prevent the delivery of the documents. Therefore, an investigation must be opened, lessons must be learned, and the guilty parties must be punished to the full extent of the law.

Religious Zionism Party MK Michal Woldiger said, "It's not just that [Prime Minister Naftali] Bennett is allowing his government's ministers to meet with the Holocaust denier and terrorist Abu Mazen [PA President Mahmoud Abbas], worse still, he is silent in the face of this terrible reality that includes the kidnapping of a senior Civil Administration official. Mr. Bennett … your silence in the face of this declaration of war exposes the people of Israel to great threats.

Maurice Hirsch, a former senior military jurist also took to Twitter following the report.

"From failure to failure, without learning a thing. For those who don't understand, the Civil Administration is one of the most dangerous bodies for the people of Israel's future in the land of Israel. For years, the body sees itself as more responsible for building the Palestinian terrorist state than promoting the return of Jews to the Land of Israel," he tweeted.

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An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Wednesday that accusations by US authorities that Iran is plotting to kidnap Iranians abroad who criticize the country are "baseless and ridiculous."

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The spokesperson, Saeed Khatibzadeh, was quoted by Iran's semiofficial ISNA news agency a day after US federal authorities in New York announced criminal charges against four Iranian intelligence operatives.

The authorities, quoting from an indictment, say the individuals plotted to kidnap a prominent Iranian opposition activist and writer in exile from her Brooklyn residence and take her to Tehran.

Khatibzadeh derided the plot as "Hollywood-style scenarios" and "baseless and ridiculous" accusations unworthy of a response.

"Making such an imaginary story is not unlikely by the US. Its entire short history is full of assassination, kidnapping and sabotage in other countries," Khatibzadeh said.

Later Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told a briefing that Iran's "actions to attempt to silence the voices of those peacefully working to address the situation both inside of Iran and outside of Iran are appalling."

"We categorically condemn Iran's dangerous and despicable reported plot to kidnap a US citizen on US soil," she said.

She said law enforcement actions like those announced Tuesday were part of a strategy to defend US citizens and interests that include actions taken to defend US forces from Iranian-backed terrorist groups and diplomatic efforts to constrain Iran's nuclear program.

The indictment in Manhattan federal court described the plot as part of a wider plan to lure three individuals in Canada and a fifth person in the United Kingdom, along with individuals in the United Arab Emirates, to Iran.

The identities of the alleged victims were not released but Brooklyn-based Masih Alinejad confirmed that authorities had told her she was among the targets.

"I knew that this is the nature of the Islamic republic, you know, kidnapping people, arresting people, torturing people, killing people. But I couldn't believe it that this is going to happen to me in the United States of America," Alinejad told The Associated Press.

Alinejad, who worked for years as a journalist in Iran, long has been targeted by its theocracy after fleeing the country following its disputed 2009 presidential election and crackdown.

She is a prominent figure on Farsi-language satellite channels abroad that critically view Iran and has worked as a contractor for US-funded Voice of America's Farsi-language network since 2015. She became a US citizen in October 2019.

Before the plot to kidnap Alinejad started in 2020, authorities say, the operatives had made several failed attempts to lure her to Turkey by coercing family members to invite her for a reunion.

Alinejad's brother warned her of the scheme, she said.

"My brother exposed it and he was arrested" in Iran, she said. Other family members living in Iran were forced to publicly denounce her, she said.

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Roya Boroumand, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran, said the Islamic Republic has intensified operations in the past few years against opponents in Western countries.

Social media has allowed these overseas activists to play a larger role in organizing resistance to Islamic Republic policies, posing a threat to the government, Boroumand said.

For example, Alinejad has used the reach of her 5 million followers on Instagram to promote videos of women violating Iran's head covering law.

"It has led to many people challenging government agents in the street and this is something they do not tolerate," Boroumand said.

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The story of Sgt. Nachshon Wachsman is imprinted on the nation's collective memory after the heroic rescue attempt by Sayeret Matkal soldiers on Oct. 14, 1994.

Under direct orders from then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the elite fighters set out to rescue Wachsman from the home in the village of Bir Nabala where he was being held. But the terrorists killed Wachsman before he could be extracted, and in the gunfight that ensued Capt. Nir Poraz was also killed.

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"Time doesn't help. I've become weaker, and sick. It's very hard to deal with it," says Yehuda.

Despite the difficulty, Yehuda remains optimistic and says that on Nov. 7, a memorial service for his son (according to the Hebrew calendar date of his death) is planned that will include soldiers from the Sayeret Matkal and from the Orev Unit in the Golani Brigade, where Nachshon served.

"I'm still in touch with them, and with Nir Poraz's sisters," Yehuda says.

"Nachshon was 19, a symbol of innocence. He wanted to defend Israel, the people of Israel, and the Torah of Israel, with our ancient traditions and met his death at the hands of a Hamas terrorist cell. He took things as they were like he was told to. He served in Lebanon for six months, against Hezbollah, and did the best work he could."

Yehuda does not bear a grudge for what happened in the failed rescue attempt.

"I'm not angry. It's been 25 years and most of the people involved in the [rescue] operation aren't alive anymore. Is there a reason to be angry at the dead? Aside from that, I'm sure that they wanted the best, and what happened, happened."

Yehuda connects that same dark week when hundreds of thousands were praying for Nachshon's safe return, to the current polarization in Israeli society and the unstable political situation, calling for an immediate end to political fighting.

"While Nachshon was abducted, a lot of people of all ethnicities came to the Western Wall – religious and secular – to pray he would be saved. There was great unity among the people. That's what I would like our leaders to learn from – that we have to come together to form a government soon, and remember the time of Nachshon's abduction."

Yehuda points out that Nachshon was a captive and the Sayeret Matkal set out to rescue him, "without asking if he voted for the National Religious Party or anyone else. They were ready to sacrifice their lives to save an Israeli soldier, and it didn't matter where he was from or where he was aligned. Somehow, 25 years after that phenomenon of responsibility for one another and sacrifice … has become weaker. We are being separated, which is a big danger to our existence in Israel."

Q: Are you afraid that in the future, soldiers won't want to go on missions to rescue abducted soldiers?

"That is a concern, given what we're seeing in politics," Yehuda says.

"We're always in a war, and we don't have the luxury of such big [internal] divisions. Everyone needs to compromise so we can unite and strengthen the people who make decisions. We are surrounded by very strong enemies. They have missiles pointed at us, and Iran wants to wipe us off the map. At a time like this, we should split? Nachshon symbolized innocence."

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The searches continued for 18 days until the boys' bodies were found, almost by chance, near the Palestinian town of Halhul. Thousands accompanied them as they were laid to rest, but the drama wasn't over. For three months, the Shin Bet security agency, the IDF, and personnel from the Israel Police Counter Terror Unit continued to hunt the terrorists who had abducted and murdered the three teens. Meanwhile, Israel tumbled into Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in Gaza.

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Five years later, the main players speak for the first time in the new film "Kidnapping in Real-Time," which will be broadcast on Israel's Channel 12 at 9:15 p.m. on Saturday. The film includes testimonies from the commanders of the mission that was doubly complicated – both in terms of the effort to find the boys and the pursuit of the terrorists, which ended in a dramatic operation in Hebron where the kidnappers were killed in a carpentry workshop.

It happened on Thursday, June 12, 2014, at 10:22 p.m. The kidnappers, Marwan Kawasme and Amar Abu Aysha arrived at the Gush Etzion junction in a stolen car that they had acquired ahead of time. They had been there the previous night, but hadn't found a likely target. So they went home and tried again the next night.

The kidnappers spotted an Israeli teen looking for a ride at the hitchhiking post at the entrance to Alon Shvut. That was Eyal Yifrach, 19. The kidnappers stopped, told him they were going to Ashkelon and beckoned to him to hop in. Two other teens, Gil-ad Shaer, and Naftali Fraenkel, both 16, stepped out from the post and joined the ride. All three sat in the backseat.

Shaer and Fraenkel, who were classmates at Yeshivat Mekor Chaim Yeshiva in Kfar Etzion, didn't know Yifrach. Immediately after they got into the car, the terrorists turned around and pointed a gun at them. Shaer managed to call the police emergency line and whisper, "We've been kidnapped."

The operators tried to understand what was going on, but they dropped the matter.

"They were sure someone was playing a prank," says Israel Police Supt. Shai Cohen, head of the emergency dispatchers department at the National Police Headquarters and a member of the investigative committee that probed how the emergency operators responded to the call.

"They tried to contact the [Shaer's] number, and when he didn't answer, they assumed it had been a prank call because a large percentage of the calls directed to the Judea and Samaria emergency line are pranks," Cohen explains.

Seconds after the kidnappers shot the boys, they turned the car around and drove back in the direction of the junction where they had originally picked them up. By the time an hour had passed, Shaer's parents had begun to look for him after he neither arrived home nor answered his phone.

"We called everyone we could, but the boy had vanished," says Shaer's father, Ofir. Shaer's parents reported him missing. Police went to Fraenkel's house to see if the boys were there.

"We were woken up at 3:30 a.m. by [the police] knocking," says Fraenkel's father, Avi.

"Police were standing at the door, looking for Gil-ad. I went upstairs to Naftali's room and they weren't there. It came as a 'boom.' When I realized that the phone had pinged in the Hebron area, it was obvious that the situation was bad," Fraenkel says.

The security establishment got involved only early the next morning. After consultations, a decision was taken to announce a "test of truth" – the code for a kidnapping.

"Right away, I realized this was something different," says Maj. Gen. Tamir Yadai, currently commander of the IDF Homefront Command, who at the time was the commander of the IDF's Judea and Samaria Division.

"I remember packing a bag and telling my wife that I had no idea when I'd be back," Yadai says. Like the rest of the people involved in the events that unfolded, it would be more than three weeks before Yadai was back home.

The searches focused on a ravine near Bayt Kahil. After examining the highway cameras and communication data, it turned out that the terrorists had stayed in that area after the abduction. The prevailing assessment was that they were holding the boys captive there, or had buried them somewhere nearby.

"We turned over every square inch. There's not a single home we didn't search, no point where we didn't dig," Yadai says, adding, "We hoped at least one of them was alive."

The working assumption was that the boys were alive, but the searchers' gut feeling said otherwise.

It was clear to the Shin Bet that it would take a miracle to find them alive. "Hamas in Hebron has a tradition of not leaving kidnapped victims alive," says Assaf Yariv, who at the time was head of the Jerusalem and West Bank district in the Shin Bet and oversaw the intelligence-gathering aspect of the search.

The feeling was bolstered when officials listened to the recording of Shaer's emergency call. Yariv was one of the first to hear it. He thought he could hear shots. Others in the Shin Bet situation room thought differently. Yariv asked Shlomi Michael, then-commander of the Israel Police Counter Terror Unit, to listen to the recording. Michael confirmed that shots could be heard.

For the first 24 hours, security forces had nothing to go on. Information trickled in slowly. On Friday night, Kawasme and Abu Aysha were already the prime suspects after security forces received a report that they had been seen in the vehicle used in the kidnapping. Special units raided their homes but found nothing. Other attempts to find the two were in vain. A few hours later, it was obvious to the Shin Bet that they were the kidnappers, but no one had any idea where they were or what the condition of the boys was.

The next decision was to work in two directions: field searches, based on an analysis of the route that the car took, and intelligence-operational work that would probe every report and every suspect. The search was named "Operation Brother's Keeper."

For days, there were no developments. The terrorists hadn't made contact to negotiate for the boys' release. "My biggest fear was that we would get to the kidnappers and kill them, and would never know what happened to the boys," says Yariv.

Only on Saturday, June 28, 16 days after the abduction, did a Shin Bet field coordinator who had joined the searches find Yifrach's glasses at the side of the road, in a place near the village Bayt Kahil that had been swept dozens of times already. A few yards away he found a pen and bloodstains. This was the first time the searches had turned up anything that brought security forces closer to either the teens or the kidnappers.

That night, Shin Bet personnel visited the Yifrachs' home to ascertain that the glasses found had belonged to Eyal. They wanted to find out where the glasses had been purchased, and the same night the owner of the shop was located. He confirmed that he sold glasses from that manufacturer.

The next day, Sunday, June 29, the three boys' parents were taken to the place of the kidnapping. They asked to meet with the soldiers who were searching for their sons so they could thank them.

"Instead, they thanked us," says Racheli Fraenkel. "They said they wouldn't stop looking until they found them."

Yadai remembers that meeting.

"People didn't go home [on leave] for weeks. There were soldiers who gave up their end-of-service vacations or decided not to visit their parents abroad just so they could keep looking. If there are moments that make army service worthwhile, this was one of them."

That evening, a solidarity rally took place in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv. Searches went on in areas determined by the Shin Bet based on evidence and intelligence. An analysis of the territory was conducted by people from the Kfar Etzion Field School, who had joined the search efforts a few days earlier. They pointed out mostly abandoned spots and wells where they suspected the victims, or their bodies, might be.

On Monday, June 30, the bodies were found in one of the locations identified, Khirbet Arnab, near Hebron. Searchers intended to look into a well, but after they discovered it to be empty, something caught the eye of one of the field school guides.

"There was a pile of dried bramble. It was obvious someone had piled it up," says Maj. Hani al-Quran, then a tracker officer with the Etzion Brigade. "The guide and the tracker spotted the brambles and saw a pile of rocks, dug a little, and then hit something. It was part of a body."

After all the bodies were found, most of the forces moved southward to Gaza, where an escalation was taking place that would turn into Operation Protective Edge. Although Gaza had been simmering in the previous weeks, the abduction and the search efforts heightened tensions. In Judea and Samaria, hundreds of Hamas operatives were arrested, including leaders of the organization and many terrorists who had been freed in the prisoner exchange deal for captive soldier Gilad Schalit. Hamas responded with rocket fire, and Israel launched counter-attacks until everything blew up into a ground conflict that lasted 50 days and saw 73 Israelis, a Thai foreign laborer, and 2,000 Palestinians killed.

As the operation was underway, security forces continued to hunt for Kawasme and Abu Aysha. "We arrested anyone who might have ties to them," says Chief Supt. O, who was then head of the combat branch of the Israel Police Counter Terror Unit. "The special forces alone carried out over 40 major arrests of people who were closely associated with them. It seemed to me that other than their first-grade math teacher, we arrested everyone."

Yariv, who directed the hunt for the terrorists, says that hundreds of people were arrested in the process of finding the kidnappers. "Every time we thought, now we're there, we'd find ourselves at an impasse. Among other things, it had to do them making no mistakes."

"They cut themselves off from the world as if the earth had swallowed them up," said Arik Barbing, who was head of the Shin Bet's cyber division. "They didn't talk on the phone, they didn't surf the net, they didn't send texts, and they didn't do anything different that would allow us to reach them."

The security establishment was familiar with the kidnappers: they had been under administrative arrest but were later released. There were hundreds like them in the Hebron area.

In mid-July, exactly a month after the kidnapping, the Shin Bet investigation led to an operation in east Jerusalem in which Hussam Kawasme, who owned the land where the bodies were found, was arrested. The interrogation was difficult. Kawasme played innocent and refused to admit that he had any connection to what had happened. Only after several days did he admit to leading the terrorist cell responsible for the kidnapping.

"He told us he approached his brother, who had been deported to Gaza in the Schalit deal, and asked him for money for a military operation. His brother sent him 150,000 shekels ($43,000) in cash through a female relative, and that money was used to buy the cars and weapons," Yariv says.

Hussam Kawasme told interrogators that the terrorists had planned to kidnap one Israeli and keep him hidden in a barbershop in Hebron where Marwan worked while they negotiated to release him in exchange for Israel freeing Palestinian prisoners. But after three Israelis got into the car, the kidnappers decided to murder them instead.

"They dropped the bodies at one end of the wadi and went into Hebron. Marwan got out of the car and went to Hussam, and Amar took the car away to burn it. Hussam and Marwan got into Hussam's car and drove together to bury the bodies on Hussam's land, and then Hussam dropped Marwan off in Hebron. There they went their separate ways," Yariv says.

The arrest of Hussam Kawasme didn't lead security forces to the murderers. The breakthrough came in mid-September as a result of a creative operation by a Shin Bet coordinator in Hebron. Police counterterror and Shin Bet personnel carried out a series of operations in Hebron, each of which yielded a little more information that led to progress. There was a concern that during the High Holidays, which were around the corner, the pressure of the operation would ease up and any leads would be lost.

"I reached the conclusion that we wouldn't be able to improve our intelligence, so we decided to take action," says Yariv.

"We realized we had one chance to get our hands on them. If we didn't catch them, the holidays would be here, and they could think we were on to them and cut themselves off again, and we'd need to start from the beginning," Yadai recounts.

The morning of Sept. 22, 2014, a few days before Rosh Hashanah, Yadai was at his son's brit milah. At the ceremony, he received an encoded phone call saying that there were signs that indicated an operation should take place that night.

"I finished up the brit quickly, went back to the army, and got the plan approved," Yadai says.

"That night, we approached four targets in central Hebron that the Shin Bet had identified," O. says. Counterterror police made up the innermost circle, surrounded by combat troops from the IDF's elite Duvdevan counterterror unit, which made sure that the area was clear of threats. Yariv sat in the command center and directed the operation. The details have never been made public.

"It was one of those moments you don't forget. There was a tense silence, fear, you could really feel it."

One of the targets that was surrounded was a carpentry workshop on the main street. At the same time, police counterterror personnel raided the home of the workshop owner and arrested him. A Shin Bet interrogator attached to the mission questioned him in the field. After a few minutes, he admitted that the terrorists were hiding in his workshop.

The Shin Bet interrogator took a piece of paper and a pen and asked the owner to sketch out where exactly they were hiding, so that forces could aim the operation at the right place. That drawing, which remains in the possession of the Shin Bet, is now published here for the first time.

The Palestinian drew a crude plan of the workshop. The bottom section of the drawing shows the doors that opened to the main street, and the top part shows the back façade of the workshop that could be entered by a side alley. It also showed a double wall where the terrorists were hiding.

"The entrance to the hiding place was behind a chest that was up against the wall. They had been hiding there for about two months, and the owner would bring them food and water. He would come to work in the morning, move the chest, they would go out, stretch, and eat, and go back in. And then they would go on planning the next terrorist attack," Yariv says.

Meanwhile, O.'s unit had begun working in the area surrounding the workshop. The soldiers moved civilians out of the way and called for the terrorists to come out. "No one answered. We know that's how terrorists behave at the start, in the hope that they can still escape. After a long while, I asked the command center for authorization to launch the operation," O. says.

The forces opened fire at the outer doors, but nothing happened. "We were really hoping for a response, even a volley of fire, because that would tell us they were there and the story was over," O. says.

At this point, O. was given the drawing of the workshop. He learned that the terrorists' hiding place was located below street level and that trying to reach them from the entrance to the workshop would be a problem.

"The drawing made the battle more comfortable for me, but not easier," he says. "It was a very complicated area for us because of the density of the home and the fact that it was located on the main street. We had to shut everything down to prevent the slightest chance that they'd escape."

"We fired a few shots at the workshop. We even fired a few anti-tank missiles, but there was no response," he says.

In the forward command center, which was located on the roof of a nearby building, Yadai was waiting. "At the start of the operation I expected we'd be able to get our hands on the terrorists right away, and when that didn't happen, I started to think that maybe they weren't there. That once again, we'd failed to find them."

A different tactic was needed, O. decided. Instead of trying to breach the walls, the forces would go in through the ceiling.

"I asked the commander of the second platoon, who had finished the operation, to arrest the workshop owner and join me. I placed him across from the place where I wanted to dig, and I got everyone ready for me to detonate an explosives load over the terrorists' heads, where we thought they were hiding, based on the sketch. I told them on the radio to place the explosives on the ceiling, between the two concrete walls, hoping that would end things."

A heavy-duty tractor was brought in to clear the area, and then the soldiers placed the explosives. The detonation went off as planned, but nothing happened.

"We started to have doubts. We said to ourselves, either we killed them, or they aren't there," O. says.

A few more minutes passed, and then the two terrorists popped out of the hole and began firing assault rifles. "I think that was the first time in my life that I was happy to be shot at," says Yadai. "I said to myself, tonight, it's over."

The counterterror police returned fire. One of the terrorists was killed and fell down, but the other one fell back inside the hole and it wasn't immediately clear whether or not he was still alive.

"The problem was that he'd gone back underground, to a place that was very difficult to reach from the start, and now a fire had broken out and there were flames and smoke, which made it very difficult for the forces," says O.

The forces were afraid that the second terrorist, who turned out to be Marwan Kawasme, would take advantage of the uproar to escape. While the soldiers were debating about what to do, he popped up out of the hole and began firing. One of the bullets struck the oil pipe of one of the pieces of engineering equipment that the soldiers were using, putting it out of commission.

"We managed to fire a few shots at him, and he fell back into the hole," says O. "But it was obvious he was alive, and we needed to continue."

Dawn was breaking and the commanders were worried that the city morning would bring riots and clashes. "We realized we needed to end the event. We decided to put a large number of explosives inside the workshop so the shockwaves [from the explosion] would do the work, bring down what was necessary, and not leave the terrorist any chance of getting out," O. says.

"We got the forces ready. And confirmed with the Duvdevan soldiers that the area was hermetically sealed, so we could operate in peace."

He asked his second in command to prepare a load of 4 kg. (9 pounds) of explosives, place them on a power shovel, and simply drop them into the hole that had been created in the first explosion. "It was an explosives load with a long lead time, but we shortened it so the terrorist couldn't throw it back out."

The explosives were placed inside the hole and a few seconds later detonated.

"All the walls of the workshop collapsed, and all the doors flew off. They were massive Arab doors, and I told myself that if they were blown off, there was no chance that human tissue could remain alive inside."

Yadai: "I look at the fire and the enormous damage and said, there's no chance anyone is coming out alive."

Palestinian firefighters were called in to put out the fire. Police counterterror troops and soldiers from the Duvdevan Unit stayed on-site to make sure the affair finally was over.

"The counterterror unit has a mantra we recite at incidents – 'There's no body until there's a body.' We want to see the body for ourselves because there have been cases where the terrorists came out alive and shot at us, or fled. So we needed to close the book," O. says.

It took an hour to extinguish the fire. Kawasme's blackened and burned body was found. His family and Abu Aysha's were summoned to identify them. When authorization was received, the affair was finally over. "It put a smile on our faces. We could celebrate the holidays happily," O. says.

Yadai: "The kidnapping incident is the kind of event we take with us to the grave, that carries with it a sense of guilt that it happened in your patch and on your watch. It's not that anyone will show up and accuse you of being responsible, but after you get to know the families, you feel even more of an obligation to bring the story to an end."

Yariv drove back to his office. "On the way, I called two people – [then] head of the Shin Bet Yoram Cohen, and our staff member who was responsible for contact with the families, so she could let them know that it was over."

"Ultimately, you're responsible for the territory and everything that happens in it, for good or for bad, it's your responsibility. And that responsibility goes with you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and there's nothing you can hide behind. That's the sense of responsibility that accompanied me both as a junior manager and now as a senior manager in the Shin Bet, and it was clear to me, after more than three years on the job that I wasn't leaving the obligation [to the families], or to whoever would succeed me. The day after wasn't a happy one for me, but I felt easier. I told myself that we'd gotten even."

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One wore civilian clothes, the other an army uniform. They said they were from the Iraqi army's 20th Division, which controls the northern Iraqi town of Badoush. In fact, they were Islamic State group militants who had come down from the surrounding mountains into Badoush with one thing on their mind: Revenge.

Around 13 more gunmen were waiting outside. The fighters pulled Khadija's husband and his two brothers into the yard and shot them dead, leaving them in a pool of blood – punishment for providing information to the Iraqi military.

"How can we live after this?" Khadija said. The three brothers were the providers for the entire family. "They left their children, their livestock, their wives, and their elderly father who doesn't know what to do now."

A year and a half after the Islamic State group was declared defeated in Iraq, the militants still evoke fear in the lands of their former so-called caliphate across northern Iraq. The fighters, hiding in caves and mountains, emerge at night to carry out kidnappings, killings and roadside ambushes, aimed at intimidating locals, silencing informants and restoring the extortion rackets that financed ISIS's rise to power six years ago.

It is part of a hidden but relentless fight between the group's remnants waging an insurgency and security forces trying to stamp them out, relying on intelligence operations, raids and searches for sleeper cells among the population.

The militants' ranks number between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters around Iraq, according to one Iraqi intelligence official.

"Although the territory once held by the so-called caliphate is fully liberated, Daesh [Islamic State] fighters still exhibit their intention to exert influence and stage a comeback," said Maj. Gen. Chad Franks, deputy commander-operations and intelligence for the U.S.-led coalition, using the Arabic acronym for the group.

In towns around the north, Iraqi soldiers knock on doors in the middle of the night, looking for suspects, based on intelligence tips or suspicious movements. They search houses and pull people away for questioning.

Anyone is seen as a potential ISIS collaborator or sympathizer. In February, Human Rights Watch accused authorities of torturing suspects to extract confessions of belonging to ISIS, an accusation the Interior Ministry has denied. Detainees are pushed by the thousands into what critics call sham trials, with swift verdicts – almost always guilty – based on almost no evidence beyond confessions or unaccountable informants ' testimony. The legacy of guilt weighs heavily especially on women and children, who face crushing discrimination because of male relatives seen as supporting IS.

AP journalists embedded with a battalion of the 20th Division last month and witnessed several of its raids at Badoush.

Badoush, on the Tigris River just outside the city of Mosul, is a key battleground because it was once one of the most diehard ISIS strongholds.

In the summer of 2014, it was a launching pad for the militants' blitz that overran Mosul and much of northern Iraq. ISIS built a strong financial base by extorting money from the owners of Badoush's many industrial facilities. Security officials estimate two-thirds of its population – which numbered around 25,000 before the war – were at one point members or supporters of the group.

Now the population is divided. Residents who suffered at the hands of ISIS or lost loved ones to the group are suspicious of neighbors they believe still support the militants. Within families, some members belonged to the group and others opposed it.

The Badoush area alone has seen 20 ISIS attacks, from bombings to targeted killings, since it was retaken from the militants in March 2017, according to the Kurdish Security Council. The militants brag about the attacks in videos that show fighters storming houses and killing purported "apostates" and spies.

"The operations that we do now rely on intelligence by following up the families of Daesh," said Maj. Khalid Abdullah Baidar al-Jabouri, commander of a battalion in the 20th Division, speaking at his base just outside Badoush.

Distrust runs deep among the residents.

In one raid witnessed by the AP, troops banged on the door of a man who had returned to Badoush a day earlier. He had fled town just before the IS takeover in the summer of 2014 and stayed in the Kurdish town of Sulaimaniyah throughout their rule. But his father and one of his brothers remained and joined IS.

When the man returned, a local sheikh immediately notified the military. In the raid, the soldiers searched the house and checked his phone records for any suspicious calls abroad.

They asked him about his father and brother. "I swear, they destroyed my life," the man said. When asked about ISIS, he insisted, "I never came face to face with them."

The soldiers took him away for questioning, as his three little sisters shook and cried with fear. He was later released.

On another occasion, an informant told the army he had spotted explosives-laden suicide belts in the mountains while out picnicking and looking for truffles. Presumably, they had been dropped off there for attackers to retrieve and use. Wearing a balaclava to keep his identity secret, he led the army to the spot, where they found the belts and detonated them remotely.

"People in the town are very cooperative," says Mohammed Fawzi, an intelligence officer. "But don't forget that in one house one person was with Daesh and another member was killed by them. It's very complicated."

Among the most chilling ISIS attacks was the Jan. 3 killing of the three Abd brothers, carried out with brutal precision.

The strangers claiming to be soldiers who entered the Abd's house said they just wanted to ask a few questions and that it wouldn't take long.

Khadija Abd was immediately suspicious. Her husband, Inad Hussein Abd and two of his brothers, Abdulmuhsin and Mohammed, were informants for the Iraqi military and knew the 20th Division's soldiers personally. So why didn't they recognize these men?

After searching the house, the intruders turned aggressive. They dragged the three brothers outside and beat them. When Khadija tried to stop them, she was beaten too. The fighters put her, the other wives on the farm and their children in a room and told them, "If anyone comes out, we shoot you in the forehead."

Khadija could hear the men murmuring outside until 10 p.m. in a dialect of Arabic she couldn't understand. Then it was silent. All they heard was the barking of dogs. Khadija thought the men had taken the three brothers away.

At dawn, she went to get water from the well. She spotted her husband's yellow sleeve in the grass. All three brothers lay on the blood-soaked ground. The militants had used silencers, so the family never heard the gunshots.

Instinctively, she looked for a cellphone to call for help. "Honestly, I couldn't even cry. I didn't cry or scream," she said.

Memories of the attack return to Khadija in her dreams – how her daughters screamed "Dad! Dad!" when they saw his body, how one tried to pull out a bullet out of her dead father's cheek. "Mom, it won't come out," she told Khadija. Her son is now too afraid to leave his room.

To the children, it's the army that killed their father, she said. "They don't understand anything that's going on."

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