Netanyahu to families of missing Israeli teens: I know these are moments of anguish

Premier assured families that Israel’s security forces were doing everything possible to find their children.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (R), an IDF officer, and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon at the Kiryat Defense Ministry Compound in Tel Aviv. (photo credit: GPO)
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (R), an IDF officer, and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon at the Kiryat Defense Ministry Compound in Tel Aviv.
(photo credit: GPO)
As Israeli security forces continue with their intensive search for three yeshiva students from the West Bank who went missing late Thursday night, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu consoled the families on Friday and vowed that no efforts would be spared to locate them.
"I know these are moments of anguish,” Netanyahu told the families of the missing teens. One of the missing teens has American citizenship.
Netanyahu personally called the families on Friday to express his sympathies and assure them that Israel’s security forces were doing everything possible to find their children.
“Be strong. The state of Israel is doing everything it can to find your sons and I promise to stay in touch with you.״
Netanyahu also expressed his sympathies to the families in Judea and Samaria and urged its residents not to hitchhike.
The families, whose identities have not been made public, have asked people to pray for their children,
“The opening moments of the Sabbath, is a time of redemption. We are asking everyone, even those who are not use to praying, to pray that the army can save the missing [teens].”
A spokesman for one of the families, said that their son was with a friend when he disappeared. 
He was making his normal trek home for Shabbat from his high-school yeshiva, Makor Chaim in Kfar Etzion in the West bank, as he does every week.
The teen called his father around from the hitching post and said he had already left school. Initially his father did not worry, because his son often took his time coming home and sometimes did not arrive until late at night.
But after midnight, the father called his son's phone. When he could not reach him by 2 a.m. he personally went to the police station. Until morning, the father held out hope, that his son had gone to a friend's home to sleep. A series of SMS message in the morning, revealed that this was not the case.