NETANYAHU VOWS RETRIBUTION AGAINST HAMAS AFTER THE FIND OF THE THREE DEAD KIDNAPPED JEWISH TEENAGERS. BOMBING OF GAZA STARTED LAST NIGHT, AND THERE WILL BE MORE TO COME!

NETANYAHU VOWS RETRIBUTION AGAINST HAMAS AFTER THE FIND OF THE THREE DEAD KIDNAPPED JEWISH TEENAGERS. BOMBING OF GAZA STARTED LAST NIGHT, AND THERE WILL BE MORE TO COME!

Israel: Hamas 'will pay price' after teenagers found dead.

Israel has vowed retribution against Hamas, the militant Palestinian group it says kidnapped and murdered three teenagers in the occupied West Bank.

The bodies of Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach were found on Monday evening, after they had been missing for more than a fortnight.

Israel PM Benyamin Netanyahu said: "Hamas is responsible and Hamas will pay." Hamas denies any involvement.

Israel launched more than 30 air strikes on the Gaza Strip overnight.

The strikes came in response to 18 rocket attacks on southern Israel from Gaza since Sunday night, the Israeli military said.

Israeli troops also flooded into the Palestinian town of Halhul. The bodies were found under a pile of rocks near the town. An Israeli official said it appeared the teenagers were shot soon after their abduction.

Israel named two suspects as Ayoub al-Kawasma and Abu Aisheh. The Israeli military said it set off explosives while raiding the homes of both.

Israeli soldiers detonated explosives at the homes of two Hamas suspects

Pictures showed extensive damage at the home of Abu Aisheh.

One Palestinian was also shot dead after throwing an explosive device at Israeli forces carrying out an operation in the West Bank town of Jenin early on Tuesday, the Israeli military said.

Analysis, by Kevin Connolly, BBC News, Jerusalem

Israel's overnight air raids on Hamas targets in Gaza were an immediate response to a wave of missile attacks launched from the Palestinian enclave since Sunday.

They should not be seen as a definitive response to the abduction and murder of the three teenage boys whose fate has transfixed this country over the course of the last two-and-a-half weeks.

In keeping with Jewish religious custom the funerals will take place on Tuesday - and only when they have passed and the outpouring of national grief they will prompt has died down will Israel's governments finalise its military and political plans.

Having firmly focused the blame for the murders on Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have to demonstrate to the Israeli public that his response will be calibrated to match the huge sense of anger and outrage that is felt here.

In the past, Israel has used targeted missile attacks to kill senior members of militant groups and it has the military capacity to target Hamas's stockpiles of missiles and rockets in a sustained campaign.

And it will have a clear political goal too. Israel was angered by the creation of a Palestinian unity government which brought together Hamas with the Palestinian Authority, whose forces helped to look for the victims.