Israeli forces found the bodies of three missing teenagers in the occupied West Bank yesterday after a nearly three-week-long search and a sweep against the Islamist Hamas group that Israel says abducted them.

PM Benjamin Netanyahu summoned his security Cabinet for a special session that could decide on stronger military moves against Hamas, which has neither confirmed nor denied the Israeli allegations.

“There can be no forgiveness for the killers of children and those who sent them.

“Now is the time to act,” Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement.

The kidnapping on June 12 of the three Jewish seminary students near a settlement in the West Bank appalled Israelis who rallied behind the teens’ families.

Netanyahu seized on the abduction to demand Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas abrogate a reconciliation deal he reached with Hamas, his long-time rival, in April that led to a unity Palestinian government on June 2.

The bodies of Gil-Ad Shaer and US-Israeli national Naftali Fraenkel, both 16, and Eyal Yifrah, 19, were found in a field near Hebron, a militant stronghold and the hometown of two Hamas members identified by Israel as the kidnappers and still at large, security officials said.

There can be no forgiveness for the killers of children

The teens had apparently been shot soon after having been abducted while hitchhiking, the officials said

“They were under a pile of rocks, in an open field,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner, a military spokesman.

Israeli media said the break in the case came after the relatives of the alleged abductors were interrogated. A large number of troops gathered at the spot – in the general area where the teenagers disappeared – to recover the bodies.

In tandem with the search over the past 18 days, Israeli forces have raided Palestinian towns and villages, detaining Hamas activists and closing the group’s institutions.