Israeli Official: Kidnapped Teen Murders Show Hamas Is Like ISIS

The murder of three teenagers should make the new Palestinian government a pariah, Israel's Intelligence Minister argues

A senior Israeli government official likened Hamas to the brutal fighters sowing chaos in Iraq on Monday and said there can be no dealing with a Palestinian government that includes the group, just hours after three Israeli teenagers believed to have been kidnapped by the group were found dead.

'This is just a reminder that Hamas is a cruel terrorist organization that sent one hundred suicide bombers, terrorists, into Israel in the past, and has now executed three teenagers, three young boys,' said Yuval Steinitz, Israel's Minister of Intelligence.

'I don't see much difference between these Hamas terrorists and the people from ISIS who executed the Iraqi soldiers,' Steinitz told a group of reporters in Washington, referring to the latter group's mass execution of hundreds of captured Iraqi security forces during its mid-June blitz into northern Iraq.

The three boys were abducted while hitchhiking on June 12. Their fate consumed Israel as a massive hunt was conducted, but their bodies were discovered in an open field near Hebron Monday.

Steinitz said that the killings reinforce Israel's position that it cannot negotiate with a Palestinian unity government combining the Palestinian Authority, which holds power in the occupied West Bank, and Hamas, which has ruled over Gaza since 2007. The U.S. continues to work with and fund Abbas's government because it does not include Hamas-affiliated ministers.

U.S. and Israeli officials say the deal by Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas forging a unity coalition between the two-long divided Palestinian wings several weeks ago was the final blow to an already-faltering Middle East peace process. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu denounced the Palestinian deal, insisting that Israel refuses to negotiate with 'terrorists.'

Though both are violent Sunni radical groups, ISIS and Hamas have very different identities and agendas. But Steinitz hopes that the killing of the teenagers will 'remind the world' of Hamas's true nature and said Abbas 'cannot proceed with this unity government with this terrorist organization.'

U.S. officials have not publicly said they're sure that Hamas was behind the abductions and killings. On Monday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki wouldn't say whether that conclusion would lead the U.S. to sever its ties with the Palestinian government.

Steinitz also argued that Abbas himself bears responsibility for the killings, noting that the abductions took place near that Palestinian Authority-controlled town of Hebron. 'Those Hamas terroists came from Hebron and are under total control of the Palestinian Authority,' Steinitz said.

Steinitz is in Washington as part of an Israeli delegation of nine, including officials from the Mossad and Israel's atomic energy agency. They met Monday with senior Obama officials who are negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program, including the State Department's Iran lead negotiator, Wendy Sherman, and deputy secretary of State William Burns. Steinitz reiterated Israel's oft-stated position that Iran should not be allowed to retain domestic uranium enrichment capability or to operate a nuclear reactor whose fuel can be fashioned into bombs.

Despite all the chaos in the region, including in Iraq and Syria, he said, 'we regard the Iranian nuclear issue as the most important in the Middle East-and the world.'

Steinitz was also skeptical about Iran's potential to play a positive role in stabilizing Iraq. 'It doesn't seem to me that Iran is eager to cooperate with the U.S. or the West as regards Iraq, because Iran's goals are different,' he said.