Reports in Jordanian and Arabic media Sunday that said dozens of firearms were found during a smuggling attempt at Allenby crossing puts a spotlight back on the flow of arms into the West Bank that has fueled recent violence.
According to the recent reports at Al-Mamlaka, a number of weapons were found during a recent smuggling attempt. These included 12 rifles and numerous pistols. The rifles are the most dangerous part of this smuggling phenomenon.
Last year we reported on a large number of illegal firearms, particularly M-4s, M-16s and also CAR-15 style rifles that have been pictured among Palestinian armed groups, terrorists and gunmen. Clashes in Nablus and Jenin have illustrated how these types of weapons are now common among the gunmen who have been clashing with the IDF.
The price of these weapons has gone up over the last year, according to the report last November in which we noted that the cost of ammo had increased from 3 NIS per bullet to 20 NIS and rifles cost around $40,000. It’s not clear if the cost has now gone down, but the weapons smuggling continues. The number of shooting attacks has also increased in the last year.
Iran praises 'unseen hands' giving weapons to terror groups
At the same time, there are more terrorist groups in the West Bank that claim to be carrying out attacks. This follows another round of tensions that also took place during Ramadan in April. These tensions involved rocket fire from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. During a speech by Iran’s president on Quds Day, he encouraged Palestinians to continue attacks on Israel. Clearly, the Iranian regime's message has been to try to undermine the Palestinian Authority. In addition, the head of the IRGC Hossein Salami gave a speech recently where he praised “unseen hands” for supporting the Palestinians and moving weapons to them. He specifically mentioned rifles according to Iranian media reports.
Although Israel has walls and fences with security systems, “unseen hands armed the West Bank, and you have modern automatic rifles and automatic weapons in the hands of the Palestinians,” he said. He might have been referring to weapons smuggling to the Palestinians.
The overall context therefore of the weapons smuggling is that the number of weapons being smuggled continues to be clear from photos and videos on social media that show Palestinians with M-4, M-16 and other types of rifles. Many of the rifles appear to be recent acquisitions, clean and with modern sights, rails and other accessories.
On the other hand the Iranian reference to trying to move rifles to Palestinian groups using “unseen hands” also hints at Iranian attempts to arm groups in the West Bank and destabilize the Palestinian Authority. Over the last year, there have also been clashes between Palestinian gangs and large clans. In all these cases the presence of illegal weapons is clear. The Palestinian Authority has also had trouble controlling Jenin and Nablus, and there have been increased terror threats from Jericho as well.
While the overall extent and number of illegal weapons are unclear, the fact that they show up in videos and photos of various Palestinians shows that there are a number of rifles. In addition, the shooting attacks, which sometimes involve the use of rifles, handguns and other weapons, illustrate the presence of illegal firearms.
Lastly, the number of smuggling incidents in which rifles and pistols are discovered is another aspect of the issue of illegal weapons moving into the West Bank. The smuggling attempts may represent a large percentage of the illegal rifles being interdicted, or it may be only a tip of the iceberg. What the videos posted online show is that modern rifles, such as M-4s and M-16 variants, are common. These tend to be much more common than AR-15s in the videos that Palestinians themselves post on social media to brag about the weapons they have.