‘Like trying to empty the ocean with a spoon’: Israel battles surge in illegal weapons

Army sources revealed that there are anywhere between 50,000-400,000 illegal weapons in Judea and Samaria alone.

By Noah Michaeli, TPS

The assassination of a Fatah terrorist on Wednesday who helped Iran smuggle weapons into Judea and Samaria underscored the proliferation of illegal Palestinian weapons, experts told The Press Service of Israel.

Israel confirmed killing Khalil Hussein Khalil Al-Maqdah in an airstrike in the southern Lebanese coastal city of Sidon.

The Israel Defense Forces said Maqdah and his brother, Mounir, had directed weapons smuggling and terror activity in Judea and Samaria on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

“We see attempts to smuggle in not just rifles, but also explosive devices and anti-tank missiles. So far, the explosives used in the terror attacks in Judea and Samaria have been home-made. As awful as it is, the results of a terror attack that would use explosives of the kind that we catch here could be much more devastating,” an Israeli military officer speaking on background told The Press Service of Israel.

These weapons, the source explained, enter Jordan through Syria and Iraq. “There are lots of arms in these countries left over after the wars there, and there are enough people willing to sell them.”

Along the Jordanian border, “there are villages that have been involved in smuggling for years.”

A recent investigative report by the Israeli digital newspaper HaKol HaYehudi, citing army sources, revealed that there is anywhere between 50,000-400,000 illegal weapons in Judea and Samaria alone.

HaKol HaYehudi investigative reporter Elchanan Groner told TPS-IL that those illegal weapons include explosives, rockets, automatic rifles, sniper rifles and more.

“There are also weapons that are assembled domestically, which occurs all over but specifically in places like Nur Shams and Jenin, and more, in underground weapons workshops,” Groner said.

Other weapons are stolen from Israeli army bases, and a significant amount are smuggled through Jordan.

Groner noted that since the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel provided 70,000 weapons to the Palestinian Authority. A significant number of those guns ended up in the hands of terrorists.

Cracking down on all those guns is no simple matter.

“In 2021, Israeli forces seized only 304 weapons in Judea and Samaria,” Groner told TPS-IL. “In 2022, the IDF seized 465 weapons, and in 2023, approximately 700 weapons, averaging almost two weapons per day.”

While that number has increased to nearly three per day since October 7, at that rate, Groner says, even with the most conservative estimate of 50,000 illegal weapons in Judea and Samaria, the IDF is barely making a dent.

“It’s like trying to empty the ocean with a spoon, and in parallel, there’s someone filling the ocean with a giant water pipe,” Groner said.

Regarding Sunday’s Tel Aviv attack, Groner says that he knows of several similar attempted bombings emanating from Judea and Samaria since the start of the war – although they were foiled and received less media attention – including one that involved a Jordanian citizen who had snuck into Israel.

“According to our sources, since the beginning of the war some 4,000 people have illegally entered Israel via Jordan,” he said.

In response to the rising threat of illegal weapons, Groner called for a broad crackdown on illegal weapons, both in Judea and Samaria, and across Israel as a whole.

Israeli security forces have arrested more than 4,400 Palestinian terror suspects in Judea and Samaria since October 7, of whom around 1,850 are affiliated with Hamas.

Judea and SamariaSmugglingTerrorismWeapons