Israel warned Hamas Thursday against any escalation in violence, reinforcing its Gaza border amid continued rocket fire and heightened tensions after three Israeli youths and a Palestinian teenager were murdered.

"We are looking for calm, not escalation, but if Hamas chooses to act against us, we shall be ready," armed forces chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz said in remarks tweeted by the army.

Israeli troops on Wednesday demolished the home of a Palestinian man charged with the murder of a high-ranking Israeli police officer earlier this year, the army and Palestinian witnesses said.

Witnesses in Idhna village, 10 kilometers (six miles) west of Hebron, told AFP troops arrived during the night and blew up the home of Ziad Awad, 42.

Israel vowed Tuesday to hunt down the Hamas militants it holds responsible for killing three teenagers, but was likely to carefully weigh its response to avoid triggering a regional flareup.

As further details emerged of the fate of the three abducted youngsters whose bodies were found in the southern West Bank on Monday, Israel said it would not rest until it finds their killers.

Israeli troops shot dead a young Palestinian early Tuesday during a raid into the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, Palestinian security and medical officials said.

They named the dead youth as Yusuf Abu Zagher, 18, and said the incident appeared unrelated to Israeli operations in the southern part of the territory following the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers there.

Five Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were wounded Friday by Israeli tank shells fired in response to the detonation of a border bomb, Palestinian medics and the Israeli army said.

A spokesman for Gaza's health services, Ashraf al-Qudra, told Agence France Presse the five were wounded after the tanks targeted "two mosque minarets" east of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.

Troops searching for three teenagers Israeli says were kidnapped a fortnight ago by Hamas militants, arrested 17 Palestinians in the West Bank overnight, an army spokeswoman said on Wednesday. 

The arrests took place across the West Bank and included two Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament, Palestinian sources said.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said in a letter to Bashar Assad that his election as Syrian president will help to end the country's three-year war, Damascus said on Wednesday.

"Your election to the presidency of the Syrian Arab Republic guarantees Syria's unity and sovereignty, and starts of a countdown to the end of Syria's crisis and its war against terrorism," Abbas wrote, according to the Syrian presidency's Facebook page.

The Israeli air force carried out 12 raids on the Gaza Strip overnight after militants fired more rockets at southern Israel, Palestinian security sources said Wednesday.

The attacks struck training grounds used by Palestinian militants, leaving two people lightly injured, they told Agence France Presse.

Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians in the West Bank on Sunday in separate clashes that erupted as they made more arrests in the hunt for three missing teenagers.

Their deaths raised to four the number of Palestinians killed since the army began a massive search for the Israeli students who disappeared on June 12 while hitchhiking in the southern West Bank.

The West Bank community of Battir, granted UNESCO endangered World Heritage status on Friday, is famous for its Roman-era irrigation system that is under threat from the Israeli separation barrier.

The U.N. cultural agency's World Heritage Committee granted protected status to the agricultural community south of Jerusalem, where Israel plans to build part of the barrier, after an emergency nomination by Palestinian officials.