Army raids gun-making workshops, nabs weapons in West Bank

IDF soldiers uncovered weapons caches and gun manufacturing workshops in three cities in the West Bank early Monday morning, in an ongoing crackdown on illegal arms and gun running, the army said.

Gunsmithing workshops were shut down in Jenin, and another was closed in Dahariya in the southern West Bank during the large operation, according to the IDF.

During the Jenin raids, “two gun manufacturing workshops were shut down, and four pistols were seized, along with magazines, ammunition and gun components,” the army said.

Five people were arrested in Jenin in connection with the confiscated guns, along with one other person suspected of an unrelated crime, an IDF spokesperson said.

One illegal Carlo-style submachine gun was also found and seized in Surif, west of the Etzion bloc, and one person — an alleged Hamas member — was arrested for his connection to it, the army said.

The seized weapons, along with some gun-making equipment, were handed over to the Shin Bet and police for further investigation.

In the past year, the IDF and Israel Police have stepped up their efforts to combat the creation and distribution of illicit weapons in the West Bank.

Thus far, the largest operation in the West Bank of 2016 was a series of raids on gun manufacturing workshops in Hebron and Bethlehem, in which dozens of guns were seized and multiple facilities were shut down. (Video below.)

However, the task of removing illegal guns from the West Bank remains Sisyphean, a senior IDF officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said last week.

“We won’t be able to take all the guns from the West Bank in one week,” the officer said.

Guns hold a status in Palestinian culture, he noted. They are fired at weddings and other celebrations, in addition to their use for personal protection and crime.

“But at the same time, I don’t want kids to get their hands on those guns. And we don’t want those guns to be cheap so that anyone who wants one can buy one for NIS 1,000 ($265),” he said.

“I’ll remind you that in the Sarona attacks, the two attackers paid more for the suits they wore than for the guns they used,” the officer said, referring to a shooting in June in which four people died after two terrorists opened fire in a Tel Aviv restaurant.

Besides the Surif and Jenin arrests, troops picked up another 12 Palestinians during the late-night, early-morning operation, the army said.

The majority of them are suspected of taking part in rock throwing and taking part in violent demonstrations against security forces. Four of the suspects were allegedly members of the Hamas terrorist organization, according to the IDF.