An Israeli soldier searches a Palestinian vehicle at a checkpoint near the West Bank City of Hebron yesterday. Photo: Reuters

Israel said yesterday that Hamas militants had abducted three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank, warning of “serious consequences” as it pressed on with a search and detained dozens of Palestinians.

The two 16-year-olds and a third man, aged 19, disappeared on Thursday night in the West Bank, where they were seminary students in a Jewish settlement block.

“These teenagers were kidnapped and the kidnapping was carried out by Hamas members,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters in English, referring to the Palestinian Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip.

There has been no public claim of responsibility. Asked about Netanyahu’s allegations, Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip, stopped short of a clear denial or confirmation that it was involved.

Since the three vanished, apparently while hitchhiking, the Israeli army has carried out house-to-house searches, round-ups and interrogations in the Palestinian city of Hebron and outlying villages.

The military said it detained around 80 suspects overnight and that the dragnet would spread elsewhere in the West Bank over the coming days. Palestinian officials put the number of people taken into Israeli custody so far at more than 100.

These included at least seven Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament and several prisoners recently released by Israel, the Palestinian officials said.

Israel identified the seminary students as Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Sha’er and Naftali Frankel, who also holds US citizenship.

In their last communication, one of the three managed to phone police on Thursday night to report that they were being kidnapped, according to an Israeli security official.

“Naftali, your dad and mom and siblings love you endlessly, and you should know that the people of Israel are turning the world upside down to bring you home,” Frankel’s mother, Rachel, said in a televised statement outside the family home.

Thousands of Jews flocked to the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem yesterday evening to pray for the teenagers’ return.

The crisis tests ties between the Israeli government and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, which were frayed by his power-sharing deal in April with Hamas, an Islamist group that advocates the Jewish state’s destruction.