Palestinian gun dealers ordering parts off the internet, army says
In an illegal weapons crackdown, IDF seizes hundreds of firearm components, arrests 9 suspects in Nablus
Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
Nine Palestinians suspected of buying and selling gun parts over the internet were arrested in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus early Wednesday morning, the army said, as part of its ongoing crackdown on illegal trade in locally produced arms.
Since the beginning of last year, the Israel Defense Forces has been focused on thwarting the manufacture and sale of guns in the West Bank, with the hope of preventing such weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists and criminals.
The army has raided dozens of alleged gunsmithing workshops and seized hundreds of weapons in the past 15 months. But in the overnight raid, the army set its sights on a new aspect of the gun trade: online markets.
The army found that Palestinians had been using websites to purchase firearm components, an intelligence officer in the army’s West Bank Division told reporters on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Earlier Wednesday morning, soldiers raided a warehouse where the gun parts were being stored and found four full firearms, 130 bullets, 90 magazines and 127 various components, like grips, sights and stocks.
These various gun parts, along with easily acquired pipes and scrap metal, can be used to create what are known as Carlo-style submachine guns. These have been used to devastating effect in a number of terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank, though they are generally inaccurate and unreliable weapons.
A shooting attack in the city of Petah Tikva last month was apparently cut short because the terrorist’s gun jammed.
In the raid, the soldiers also found components that can turn legal gas-powered guns, also known as airsoft guns, into fully functioning firearms, said the officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The guns and gun parts were being sold to “hundreds of clients” throughout the West Bank, but it was concentrated in the Nablus area, he said.
These guns were being sold mostly for criminal purposes or personal protection, not terror. Though the concern is that such weapons could wind up in the hands of so-called “lone wolf” attackers, the officer said.
Over a hundred thousand illegal guns are believed to be circulating in the West Bank, but by cracking down on the manufacture and sale, the army has said it hopes to cut down on the phenomenon.
Most of the people involved in the gun trade are simple businessmen, looking to make money.
The nine Palestinians arrested, he added, were “low-life criminals, not necessarily from a terror organization.”
The army, therefore, “prefers to make a living from better things,” the officer said.
Throughout last year, the army shuttered 44 workshops that were allegedly being used to make guns. It is on track to increase that figure in 2017, having closed down seven of these shops thus far.
The IDF’s crackdown has already yielded some quantitative results, tripling the cost of a Carlo-style submachine gun between May and October 2016, the army said earlier this year.
The price of higher quality Carlos jumped from approximately NIS 2,000 ($527) in January-May to its current cost of over NIS 6,500 ($1,700). Cheaper versions of the improvised gun became three times more expensive, from a cost of NIS 1,500 in January-May to NIS 4,500 as of January, according to army estimates.
However, the full effect of this crackdown has yet to be seen, as evidenced by last month’s terror attack in Petah Tikva and a handful of shootings attacks against soldiers in the West Bank.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, the army arrested 16 other Palestinian suspects, including one alleged Hamas member, the military said.
The Times of Israel Community.