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NEW CASTLE, Colo. (AP) — Four in 10 new oil and gas wells near national forests and fragile watersheds or otherwise identified as higher pollution risks escape federal inspection, unchecked by an agency struggling to keep pace with America's drilling boom, according to an Associated Press review that shows wide state-by-state disparities in safety checks.

Roughly half or more of wells on federal and Indian lands weren't checked in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, despite potential harm that has led to efforts in some communities to ban new drilling.

In New Castle, a tiny Colorado River valley community, homeowners expressed chagrin at the large number of uninspected wells, many on federal land, that dot the steep hillsides and rocky landscape. Like elsewhere in the West, water is a precious commodity in this Colorado town, and some residents worry about the potential health hazards of any leaks from wells and drilling.

"Nobody wants to live by an oil rig. We surely didn't want to," said Joann Jaramillo, 54.

About 250 yards up the hill from Jaramillo's home, on land that was a dormant gravel pit when she bought the house eight years ago, is an active drilling operation that operates every day from 7 a.m. until sometimes 10:30 p.m. Jaramillo said the drilling began about three years ago.

Even if the wells were inspected, she questioned whether that would ensure their safety. She said many view the oil and gas industry as self-policing and nontransparent.

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In this June 9, 2014 photo, an oil and gas rig on a well pad is visible at right, adjacent to a ranc …

"Who are they going to report to?" she asked.

Government data obtained by the AP point to the Bureau of Land Management as so overwhelmed by a boom in a new drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, that it has been unable to keep up with inspections of some of the highest priority wells. That's an agency designation based on a greater need to protect against possible water contamination and other environmental and safety issues.

Factors also include whether the well is near a high-pressure formation or whether the drill operator lacks a clear track record of service.

"No one would have predicted the incredible boom of drilling on federal lands, and the number of wells we've been asked to process," said the BLM's deputy director, Linda Lance. Since fracking reached a height in 2009, about 90 percent of new wells on federal land are drilled by the process, which involves pumping huge volumes of water, sand and chemicals underground.

"The current rate of inspections is simply not acceptable to us," she said.

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FOR RELEASE SUNDAY, JUNE 15, 2014, AT 12:01 A.M. EDT. Graphic shows drilling and funding for inspect …

The agency oversees 100,000 oil and gas wells on public lands, 3,486 of which received the high priority designation.

According to BLM records for fiscal years 2009 to 2012, 1,400 of those high priority wells, spread across 13 states, were not federally inspected. Wyoming had the most, 632, or 45 percent. South Dakota had 1 out of 2 wells uninspected, and Pennsylvania had 1 out of 6.

All the higher risk wells were inspected in six states — Alabama, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Ohio and Texas.

Many more wells are located on private lands, where state officials take the lead in ensuring they comply with environmental laws, with mixed results. Nationwide, there were nearly 500,000 producing gas wells in 2012, according to Energy Information Administration data. More than 1,800 new wells were being drilled in March alone.

Dennis Willis, a former BLM field officer in Price, Utah, says he routinely provided input on oil leasing and drilling decisions on federal land before his retirement in 2009. He described a situation of chronic underfunding dating to at least the early 2000s, when BLM management made clear that issuing new permits would be a priority over other tasks, according to a 2002 memorandum from supervisors in Utah to field officers. At the time, fracking was becoming more widely used.

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In this June 9, 2014 photo, the mailbox of local resident Joann Aramillo stands near an oil and gas …

"There certainly wasn't a shortage of spills, leaks, pipeline failures and other problems," said Willis, who now does consulting work for conservation and other groups.

"It's a disaster waiting to happen," he said.

In interviews, BLM officials acknowledged persistent problems in keeping up with inspections, but said they were not aware of any major safety issues to date arising from the uninspected wells.

Lance said BLM field managers are making judgment calls to minimize the risk of potential harm to surrounding communities. The agency also is reviewing whether it needs to slow down the pace of permits to ensure public safety.

Officials noted that money provided by Congress for oil and gas operations has declined since 2007. During that period, the number of wells drilled on federal and Indian lands has increased by roughly one-third.

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In this June 9, 2014 photo, a petroleum industry worker stands on an oil and gas rig on a well pad, …

"We're trying to do the best we can with limited resources," Lance said.

If approved by Congress, the BLM's 2015 budget request of $150 million for oil and gas operations would allow the agency to conduct the bulk of its required inspections over three years, in part by collecting fees from oil and gas companies. Unlike past years, $48 million will be earmarked for inspections. The BLM made similar budget requests the last several years with little success.

The BLM has sought to add inspectors, but that has proved challenging in places such as Utah, where most wells are drilled on federal land. While a petroleum engineer could get a starting salary of $90,000 in the private sector, the BLM typically pays $35,000. This year's appropriations bill would allow the BLM to increase inspector salaries to around $44,000.

The public concern is evident in Colorado, where increased drilling into suburban and rural areas has led community groups to push nearly a dozen oil and gas local control initiatives for the November ballot. Of the wells drilled from 2009-2012, the BLM designated more than 400 on federal and Indian lands in Colorado as high priority, the third highest behind Wyoming and North Dakota. More than 160 of Colorado's uninspected high-priority wells are near New Castle, on the edge of the White River National Forest.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has been seeking a legislative compromise that could satisfy concerns over health and safety impacts of fracking.

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In this June 9, 2014 photo, an oil and gas well pad and storage tanks sit below a home in a sparsely …

Regulators contend that overall, water and air pollution problems from fracking are rare, but environmental groups and some scientists say there hasn't been enough research on those issues.

Jaramillo said residents in the canyon have mixed feelings about fracking.

"The people that really like it are the people who are getting money out of it," she said. "The people who don't are really worried about — Is it going to ruin the water? Is it going to ruin the land? Is it going to ruin the air?"

A neighbor, Kory Kipferl, who owns a 10-acre property adjacent to federal land dotted with active wells on gravel pads. He said he's accepted what he called a need for domestic drilling — but he's concerned about the water table.

"Once we start puncturing the water table, that could cause problems, whether you're drilling for gas, oil, water, whatever," Kipferl said.

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In this June 9, 2014 photo, water flows in an irrigation canal on the property of local resident Joa …

The BLM dataset is more extensive than what was reviewed recently by the Government Accountability Office, and filtered to remove duplicate well entries that yielded an overcount. In a recent report, auditors said the BLM needed to do a better job of coordinating with state regulators. In Pennsylvania, for instance, the one well that went uninspected by the BLM had been checked multiple times by the state.

Still, it's not clear how willing states are to take up the federal task.

"To say that we're going to start inspecting federal wells is just above and beyond what we could do," said John Rogers, associate director of Utah's Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, pointing to his small staff. He said companies will inspect their own equipment in order to protect their investment, so it's likely that at least some of Utah's 200-plus wells that weren't inspected by BLM are checked by someone.

"We're certainly not going to second-guess people's inspections," Rogers said of the BLM.

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In this March 29, 2013 file photo, workers stand atop water tanks while they help keep an eye on wat …

Yen reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Michelle Price in Salt Lake City and Kevin Begos in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.

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Nearly half of high-risk oil wells escape inspection

Federal officials are unable to perform safety checks because of a boom in a new drilling technique.
Potential health hazards

BAGHDAD (AP) — Emboldened by a call to arms by the top Shiite cleric, Iranian-backed militias have moved quickly to the center of Iraq's political landscape, spearheading what its Shiite majority sees as a fight for survival against Sunni militants who control of large swaths of territory north of Baghdad.

The emergence of the militias as a legitimate force enjoying the support of the Shiite-led government and the blessing of the religious establishment poses a threat to Iraq's unity, planting the seed for new sectarian strife and taking the regional Shiite-Sunni divide to a potentially explosive level.

Iraq's Shiite militias attacked U.S. forces during the eight-year American presence in the country. They also were in the lead in the Sunni-Shiite killings of 2006-07, pushing Iraq to the brink of civil war. Their death squads targeted radical Sunnis and they orchestrated the cleansing of Sunnis from several Baghdad neighborhoods.

More recently, Shiite militias have been battling alongside the forces of President Bashar Assad and Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah against mostly Sunni rebels and militants in neighboring Syria. Some of them have returned home to Iraq — first to fight Sunni militants in Anbar province, and now on Baghdad's northern fringes and in Salahuddin and Ninevah provinces.

Those are the areas where the Sunni militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, captured cities and towns in a lightning offensive last week. Among their gains were Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, and Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein.

Security officials said Shiite militiamen have been fighting for months on the government's side against ISIL fighters in areas west of Baghdad in mainly Sunni Anbar province as well as parts of Diyala province northeast of the capital. They also have been fighting Sunni militants south of Baghdad. Their involvement, however, has never been publicly acknowledged by the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

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In this Saturday, June 14, 2014 Iraqi Shiite fighters deploy with their weapons in Basra, Iraq's …

Their enhanced role in the fight against the Sunni militants will deepen Iran's influence in Iraq, giving the non-Arab and mostly Shiite country a role similar to the one it plays in Syria. Tehran has thrown its weight behind Assad's government in his struggle against mostly Sunni rebels and militants from al-Qaida-inspired or linked groups.

Shiite militiamen interviewed by The Associated Press in the past two days talk of undergoing training in Iran and then being flown to Syria to fight on the government's side. Once there, they say they are met by Iranian operatives who give them weapons and their assignment.

The militiamen, interviewed separately, paint a picture of their groups as being inspired by what they call a "grave" threat to their community. They say they have been motivated by the call to arms by their most revered cleric, the Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Ominously, they don't see the ISIL as their sole enemy; they also list Iraqi Sunnis whom they accuse of supporting the al-Qaida-inspired group in areas now under the militants' control.

Their comments also suggest a high level of acquiescence by al-Maliki's Shiite-led government. Six years ago, the government battled the Shiite militias in Basra to establish his authority and project his image as a national leader.

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In this Saturday, June 14, 2014 photo, Iraqi Shiite tribal fighters raise their weapons and chant sl …

Now, al-Maliki publicly meets with militia leaders, like Qais al-Khazali of the Iranian-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or League of the Righteous, a group that staged some spectacular attacks against U.S. troops before their withdrawal in 2011.

Hadi al-Amiri, a Shiite Cabinet minister who once led the Badr Brigade militia, created by Iran and trained by its Revolutionary Guard in the 1980s, is now a close ally of al-Maliki and personally directs battles against militants in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, where he won a parliament seat in April elections.

After years of repeated assurances that the Badr Brigade had ceased to exist as a militia, bearded men in military uniform bearing its insignia appeared on state-run TV last week, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with army troops.

The militiamen and their leaders offer a glimpse of what may be in store following the fighters' public empowerment.

"Anyone who supports or sympathizes with the ISIL is a terrorist," Abu Wareth al-Moussawi, a spokesman for the Iraqi al-Nugabaa militia, told the AP from Iran. "We will never allow ISIL to control Iraq, and we will target anyone who supports it."

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In this Saturday, June 14, 2014 photo, Iraqi Shiite tribal fighters raise their weapons and chant sl …

Jassim al-Jazaeri, a senior leader of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah Brigades, a Shiite militia based in southern Iraq, blames the loss of territory in the north partially on Sunni political leaders. "We know that ISIL has a base of support in Mosul," he said.

Since al-Sistani made his call to arms Friday through a representative, Shiite militias have flexed their muscles on the streets of Baghdad and in cities across the mostly Shiite south, including Basra. There were parades of pickup trucks carrying armed fighters chanting Shiite slogans and vowing to crush the ISIL.

Radical and anti-American Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi army fought some street battles against the Americans, has called for parades of Shiite militiamen across Iraq next weekend, evidence of their empowerment.

"The defense of Iraq and its people and holy sites is a duty on every citizen who can carry arms and fight terrorists," said al-Sistani's representative, Sheik Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalaie, in a Friday sermon. "They must volunteer in the security forces for this holy cause."

His call quickly resonated with Shiites, who wait on every word from al-Sistani or his representatives. It was instantly used by the militias to tout their legitimacy and flex their muscle on the streets.

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Shiite tribal fighters raise their weapons and chant slogans against the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic S …

Authorities looked the other way while the militiamen paraded on the streets since Friday, but the shows of strength prompted al-Sistani's office to issue a clarification late Saturday, warning against "any behavior that has a sectarian or a nationalist character that may harm the cohesion of the Iraqi people."

It also called for a halt to armed displays "outside legal frameworks" in mixed Shiite-Sunni area, urging authorities to take measures to stop them.

The words from al-Sistani's representative on Friday, warning that the Sunni militants would not stop until they reach Baghdad, Karbala and Najaf — home to some of the most revered Shiite shrines — provided the militias with religious cover. The protection of shrines was also the rallying cry of Iraqi ****e militiamen who traveled to Syria to fight Sunni rebels.

"I fight for my faith, country and holy sites," said Ayad al-Rubaei, a 23-year-old Asaib Ahl al-haq militiaman and veteran of the Syrian civil war.

"It is martyrdom that I seek, and I want it today, not tomorrow," al-Rubaei told the AP by phone from Anbar province as heavy gunfire rang out in the background.

Prominent Sunni lawmaker Salim al-Jubouri told the AP that the shows of force by the Shiite militias and their proliferation "will pose a grave danger to Iraq in the future and threaten an armed conflict."

"We say 'no' to the ISIL and 'no' to the militias," he said.

Iranian-backed militias are rallying to fight Sunni militants, but they also could cause explosive sectarian strife.
Parallels in Syria

Vienna (AFP) - Iran and world powers' high-stakes nuclear talks enter a critical fifth round in Vienna on Monday, with both sides still far apart on crucial issues five weeks before a deadline for a deal.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany want Tehran to scale back its nuclear activities, while Iran wants all UN and Western sanctions to be lifted.

This long hoped-for accord would be aimed at once and for all silencing fears that Tehran might develop nuclear weapons, and averting a slide into international conflict.

It also remains to be seen whether possible cooperation between Iran and the United States on the Iraq crisis will help the old foes find common ground in Vienna.

President Hassan Rouhani said Saturday that Iran would consider helping Washington if the US took action to stem a lightning offensive by Sunni militants in Iraq, but that there were still "differences" in the nuclear talks -- some of them "substantial".

Both sides caution that there is a long way to go as negotiators confront the same sticking points that have dogged diplomatic efforts for the past decade.

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, pictured during a meeting in Tehran, on June 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/A …

"There is still lots of work to do. There are glimpses of outlines of solutions on different issues but it is all very fragile," said a Western diplomat involved in the negotiations.

"On the more important issues, there haven't even been glimpses of solutions."

- Uranium enrichment -

The many thorny issues to be resolved in what would be a fiendishly complex deal include the duration of the mooted accord and the pace and timing of any sanctions relief.

Others include Iran's partially-built Arak nuclear reactor, which could give it weapons-grade plutonium, and allegations of past atomic weapons research.

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French Froreign Minister Laurent Fabius arrives at the Elysee palace in Paris, on June 11, 2014 (AFP …

But the gorilla in the room remains uranium enrichment, a process that can produce nuclear fuel but also, when highly purified, the core of an atomic bomb.

Iran wants to massively increase the number of centrifuges, saying it needs them to produce the fuel for a future fleet of civilian nuclear plants.

The West says that such facilities are years if not decades away from being built, fearing that Iran's real aim is to use the enriched uranium for a bomb -- something Tehran denies.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said last week that the West wants Iran to slash the number of centrifuges -- the machines used to enrich the metal -- to "several hundred" from the current 20,000.

"We are not even in the same ballpark," said Fabius. "Wanting hundreds of thousands of centrifuges is pointless unless you want the bomb."

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An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspector disconnects the connections between the twin …

- Extra time -

Under an interim deal struck in November, Iran agreed to freeze certain nuclear activities for a period of six months in return for minor sanctions relief.

This comes to an end on July 20 but it can be renewed if needed -- and if both sides agree.

Experts say such an extentions is likely already under discussion.

"The powers and Iran have been drafting documents in preparation for an eventual extension for a long time," Mark Hibbs, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told AFP.

US President Barack Obama would much prefer to get a deal by July 20 in order to fend off accusations that Iran is merely buying time ahead of midterm US elections in November.

This has been the long-standing accusation made by Israel, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear-armed state, which refuses to rule out bombing Iran's nuclear facilities.

But Rouhani argues Tehran is "serious in the negotiations" -- and that an accord is possible this time.

"It will be in the interest of everyone if a deal is signed in the next five weeks," he said.

READING, Pa. (AP) -- In August 2008, factory workers David and Barbara Ludwig treated themselves to new cars — David a Dodge pickup, Barbara a sporty Mazda 3. With David making $22 an hour and Barbara $19, they could easily afford the payments.

A month later, Baldwin Hardware, a unit of Stanley Black & Decker Corp., announced layoffs at the Reading plant where they both worked. David was unemployed for 20 months before finding a janitor job that paid $10 an hour, less than half his previous wage. Barbara hung on, but she, too, lost her shipping-dock job of 26 years as Black & Decker shifted production to Mexico. Now she cleans houses for $10 an hour while looking for something permanent.

They still have the cars. The other trappings of their middle-class lifestyle? In the rear-view mirror.

The downfall of manufacturing in the U.S. has done more than displace workers and leave communities searching for ways to rebuild devastated economies. In Reading and other American factory towns, manufacturing's decline is a key factor in the widening income gap between the rich and everyone else, as people like the Ludwigs have been forced into far lower-paying work.

It's not that there's a lack of jobs, but gains often come at either the highest end of the wage spectrum — or the lowest.

"A loss of manufacturing has contributed to the decline of the middle class," said Howard Wial, an economist with the Brookings Institution and the University of Illinois at Chicago. "People who are displaced from high-paying manufacturing jobs spend a long time unemployed, and when they take other jobs, those jobs generally pay substantially less."

Globalization, automation and recession destroyed nearly 6 million manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2009. In Pennsylvania, between 2001 and 2011, 258,000 middle-income factory jobs were lost. At the same time, Pennsylvania added jobs at the lower end of the wage spectrum — in health care and social services — and at the highest end, in sectors like management and finance.

Berks County, of which Reading (pronounced REH'-ding) is the county seat, is a mirror of that larger problem.

Decades ago, Reading was a mighty manufacturing town where the Reading Railroad — once the world's largest company, now a spot on the Monopoly board — built a 19th-century transportation empire, and factories produced everything from hats to hardware. At one time, the city boasted so many manufacturing jobs that you could quit one, cross the street and easily land another, longtime residents say.

"You made a very, very good middle-class living. You could get a new car every couple years, send kids to college," recalled Ed McCann, Berks County's longtime director of workforce development.

Then the factories shut down. The wealthy fled to the suburbs, their grand Gilded Age mansions carved up into apartments, and poor immigrants moved in. Now Reading, population 88,000, is one of the nation's neediest cities, with more than 40 percent of its residents living in poverty, up from 19 percent in 1990.

As poverty grew, so too did the gap between the rich and everyone else. The difference between the income earned by the wealthiest 5 percent in Berks County and by a median-income household rose 13.2 percent in 20 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Nationally, the wealth gap became even more pronounced, increasing 15.8 percent.

Six years after David Ludwig lost his factory job, the couple have exhausted their retirement savings. They don't go out to eat or spend on their grandchildren.

Barbara, 56, said she has applied for more than 200 jobs since January and gotten one offer, as a shipping clerk, for $7.50 an hour. She has lost 40 pounds, blaming it on the stress.

"I don't mind wearing the big baggy clothes, but just to put money aside to buy one or two bras because I lost too much weight, I couldn't even do that. It sounds silly, but it's true," she said.

The toll can also be seen at the Greater Berks Food Bank. It distributed 7.2 million pounds last year, up from 2.5 million pounds in 2001, and the food bank plans to move into a larger building to accommodate the surging demand.

The latest wave of plant closures, beginning around the turn of the millennium, hit companies like Dana Corp., Agere Systems, Luden's, Glidden and Baldwin Hardware. Some 9,300 jobs evaporated between 2001 and 2011 — nearly a quarter of Berks County's manufacturing base, according to Penn State economists Theodore Alter and Theodore Fuller. They were replaced by jobs in lower-wage sectors like education and especially health care, a phenomenon that has played out around the state and nation.

"The manufacturing sector was decimated, and the people who had those skills had no place to go," said Karen Rightmire, a longtime United Way official who now runs the Wyomissing Foundation, a private philanthropy outside Reading. "The days of the factory job that just required a strong back are gone."

Nationally, manufacturing declines accounted for 40 percent of the increase in joblessness from 2000-2011, according to labor economist Erik Hurst. And the middle class was hit hardest.

For high-income college graduates, "It doesn't look like there was a recession," said Hurst, of the University of Chicago. "For lower-skilled (manufacturing) workers, the recession comes along, you get a big decline in employment, and it hasn't rebounded at all."

The jobs picture isn't entirely dark. Manufacturing is still the No. 1 employer in Berks County, led by battery maker East Penn Manufacturing Co. and a specialty steel company. Economic development officials say they've seen a recent uptick in factory hiring, and graduates of local technical career programs are virtually guaranteed a job. Berks County has placed a huge bet on worker training, launching a "Career in 2 Years" marketing campaign that encourages people to become certified in high-skilled manufacturing fields like precision machining and robotics.

But not everyone has the aptitude or desire.

Vicki Henshaw serves on a rapid-response team that helps laid-off factory workers. She said they are typically older, with high school diplomas and outdated skills.

"You know the struggle they are going to have to even come close to the wage they were receiving," said Henshaw, executive director of labor-affiliated United Community Services in Reading. "You look at them and you feel the despair. Their lives are now in utter turmoil."

While the manufacturing picture has brightened a bit nationally — with the U.S. adding hundreds of thousands of jobs in recent years — it's an open question whether the sector is truly making a comeback or the gains are merely cyclical following the recession.

Brian Waldbiesser, for one, isn't betting on a manufacturing renaissance.

The 41-year-old father of two saw little choice but to go back to school after losing his $19.50-an-hour job at battery maker Exide Technologies, where he had put in 19 years. After a year of unemployment, he is struggling to pay the bills, and he no longer considers himself middle class.

Waldbiesser, who has tapped a federal program for workers hurt by foreign competition, is studying psychology — and psyching himself up for better times.

"I don't want this to be a sob story about me," he said. "What I would like for people to take from my story is that even though I am struggling, and it is radically different from where I was, if you seize the opportunities that are in front of you, there are opportunities out there to better yourself."

Israel rounds up Hamas members, weighs deportation

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli troops on Monday rounded up dozens more Hamas activists, including senior figures, as part of a feverish search for three missing Israeli teenagers who Israel says were kidnapped by the Islamic militant group in the West Bank.

Israeli officials have vowed to crack down on Hamas and media said the government is considering possible deportations of Hamas leaders from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip.

The three teens were abducted late Thursday, while hitchhiking in the West Bank.

Since then, the military has conducted a massive search and arrested more than 150 Palestinians, including 10 Hamas legislators.

Among those rounded up early Monday was Abdel Aziz Dweik, speaker of the long-defunct Palestinian parliament and a senior Hamas figure.

In the northern West Bank, meanwhile, a 20-year-old Palestinian was killed by army fire in a clash between Palestinian stone throwers and Israeli soldiers in the West Bank refugee camp of Jalazoun, said Palestinian hospital official Samir Saliba.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leaves a press conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Jun …

Israel says the three teenagers were kidnapped by Hamas. The incident has escalated already heightened tensions between Israel and the new Palestinian government, headed by Western-supported President Mahmoud Abbas and backed by Hamas.

Israel, which considers Hamas a terrorist group, has condemned the alliance and said it holds Abbas responsible for the teens' safety.

Hamas has praised the kidnappings, but has stopped short of claiming responsibility. Abbas aides have said the Palestinian Authority cannot be held responsible because Israel retains full control over the West Bank, despite limited Palestinian self-rule.

Israel's Justice Ministry said it held a meeting Sunday to examine a number of possible punitive steps against Hamas. The Justice Ministry would not elaborate on the actions being considered.

Israeli media reported that the government was considering deporting Hamas figures from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip, demolishing homes of Hamas members and taking sanctions against Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails.

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Israeli soldiers patrol during a military operation to search for three missing teenagers outside th …

Israeli intelligence minister Yuval Steinitz told Israeli Channel 10 on Monday that Israel would punish both Hamas and Abbas' Palestinian Authority government.

"If we don't exact a harsh price, we encourage these things. A harsh price has an effect of deterrence," said Steinitz, referring to the suspected kidnapping.

The three youths, Eyal Yifrah, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Frenkel, disappeared Thursday night as they were heading home from a West Bank religious school. Frenkel also holds American citizenship.

The case has riveted the nation's attention, receiving around-the-clock coverage in local media.

Also on Monday, Israel's military said it carried out airstrikes on five weapons and militant sites in Gaza, following overnight rocket fire from the coastal strip into Israel. Two rockets were intercepted and a third fell in an open area in Israel, causing no injuries, the military said.

On the Gaza side, four Palestinians were lightly hurt, including a toddler, said Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra.

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Associated Press writer Nasser Shiyoukhi contributed to this story from Hebron, West Bank.