-- > On the evening of 12 June 2014 , three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped in the West Bank . Israeli leadership has placed the responsibility for their abduction on Hamas . On 30 June , corpses of the teenagers were found . Other commentators , such as Israeli historian , Ilan Pappe , and NBC reporter Ayman Mohyeldin , queried the abduction and murder of the Israeli teenagers as being the real start of the chain of events leading to the major conflict . They saw parallels in the earlier killing of two Palestinian teenagers in the Beitunia killings . The autopsy report confirming that live IDF fire had been the cause of death of one of the Palestinian teenagers had become public knowledge the day before the kidnapping of the Israeli teenagers
Beitunia killings
Beitunia killings
Timeline of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict