Operation Brother's Keeper entered its 14th day on Thursday, yet has still provided no concrete answers as to the whereabouts of the three abducted teenagers.
One Palestinian man was shot and seriously wounded while trying to flee Israeli troops in the South Hebron Hills overnight Wednesday. Israeli forces operating in Judea and Samaria overnight Tuesday arrested 17 Palestinians, among them a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Bethlehem. The main area of IDF activity Tuesday night was around the city of Tulkarem.
In lieu of the Israel Defense Forces' decision earlier this week that the campaign against Hamas in Judea and Samaria "had exhausted itself," the army pulled out some of its troops to provide them a respite and replaced them with fresh units. The Nahal infantry brigade, which was deployed to Judea and Samaria in the wake of the abduction, was replaced by the 401st armored brigade.
At this stage of the operation, the IDF is focusing its efforts on searches and intelligence gathering to find the missing teens and their abductors.
Among the units participating in the search efforts is the Oketz canine unit, which was deployed to the area in the first days of the operation. The specialized unit, which utilizes army-trained search and attack dogs, has focused its attention primarily in open fields and urban areas north of Hebron. A senior Oketz officer said Wednesday that at the operation's onset some 80 tracker dogs were deployed, but that in recent days their number was reduced.
The canines supplement the soldiers' capabilities, among other things, due to their extraordinary ability to locate people, whether alive or dead. Over the past two weeks, the unit's female and male soldiers along with their canine partners have also searched numerous vehicles.
Speaking at an IDF Officers Training School (Training Base 1) ceremony on Wednesday, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said: "We will continue turning every stone and we will do everything we can to reach [the teens] and apprehend the abductors."
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, also speaking at the event, said, "Israeli citizens expect us to complete this mission, trust and depend on us to return the boys, all of them, home safe and sound."
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