On 12 June 2014, three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped in Gush Etzion, in the West Bank, as they were hitchhiking to their homes.

The three teens were Naftali Fraenkel (16, from Nof Ayalon), Gilad Shaer (16, from Talmon), and Eyal Yifrah (19, from Elad).

Gilad Shaer called a police emergency hotline to report the kidnapping.

The emergency call recording, initially under a gag order, was leaked to the public.[5] After Gilad Shaer's whispered message "They kidnapped me", the taped call also recorded shouting in Arabic from the kidnappers and several volleys of automatic gunfire