IDF weapons flooding the streets - analysis

• Author: ANNA AHRONHEIM
• Published date: 05 October 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The increase in the number of homicides has risen dramatically over the past decade, with close to 100 killed in the past year alone. Arabs account for almost 70% of all homicides in Israel, despite representing only 20% of the population.

The surge of violence has been carried out mainly by young men in communities where there is little or no police presence, coupled with high unemployment, stolen weapons and the opportunity to make easy money.

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Though many of the weapons are handguns, others are M-16s, AR15s, AK-47s, "bullpups" and more.

Videos posted on social-media networks like TikTok and Instagram show young men with military-grade weapons firing into the air or driving down desert roads holding their weapons out the window. Other videos show men threatening people or firing at targets.

The amount of illegal weaponry on the streets in Israel is catastrophic. According to GunPolicy.org, in 2017, there were an estimated 267,000 illegal weapons in Israel. By 2020 that number nearly doubled, with a Knesset estimate reporting some 400,000 illegal weapons circulating around the country.

So how many of these weapons, if any, are stolen from the Israeli military? According to a report in Haaretz, approximately 70% of the 400,000 illegal weapons in the country are thought to have been stolen from either the army or the police. Another report said thousands of weapons have been stolen from the IDF from 2013-2020, including at least 482 handguns, 47 M72 Light Anti-Tank Weapons (LAWs) and two land mines.

However, the IDF reported only 21 firearms as being stolen from bases over the past year, marking a significant decrease from the previous year when it told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee 80 firearms had been stolen.

The military also noted a decrease especially in thefts from soldiers' homes, claiming that there were 27 firearms stolen in 2017, compared with 15 in 2020.

Meanwhile, last year, the IDF told the same committee of 100 incidents of weapons theft at the IDF's Ground Forces Training Center from 2018-2020. According to the military, there were about 50 incidents of theft reported per year at the center in the South.

But it stressed that it might actually have been much higher, as many reservists choose to contact the police directly or decide not to report the theft at all.

According to Brig.-Gen...