More than 100,000 illegal weapons flooding Israel’s Negev – report

This is not only a security threat, but also one “to Israeli sovereignty itself,” said Rifman Institute head Hagai Reznik.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Israel’s south is awash with more than 100,000 illegal weapons, endangering the security of the country, according to a report issued Tuesday by the Rifman Institute for the Development of the Negev.

The report, released ahead of an upcoming discussion in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, noted that this amount of firepower equals that of 50 infantry brigades.

The main cause is a massive expansion of smuggling from Egypt’s Sinai region since the Hamas-Israel war erupted two years ago, with a 71% jump in the volume of illegal weapons that are flowing to dealers in Judea and Samaria as well, the report said.

In effect, the area receives more than 1,000 additional weapons every month.

The chief culprits are Bedouin gangs. Such gangs have also been implicated in several large-scale arms thefts from Israeli army bases in the south in recent years, with hundreds of thousands of bullets stolen alongside dozens of rifles and other weapons from IDF armories.

Besides the traditional smuggling methods – according to which criminals drive to the border fence and throw over bags or boxes full of contraband, whether drugs or weapons, to their accomplices in Israel – the latest wave often consists of drone launches.

Last month, Ynet reported that “dozens of drones have been crossing the border from Egypt into Israel over the communities of the Ramat HaNegev Regional Council,” with residents comparing the sight to “an aerial convoy” flying overhead that the army has not managed to stop, although it has recorded some successes.

“We must not normalize a drip of drones the way Qassam rockets from Gaza were normalized. The day is not far when these drones could be used in the opening salvo of a cross-border infiltration and takeover of Nitzana-area communities,” Regional Council head Eran Doron said at the time.

Upon the report’s publication, Institute head Hagai Reznik warned, “The Negev is filling up with weapons, the law has disappeared, and the state has fallen asleep while on watch. If the government doesn’t wake up now, in a few years we will no longer be able to control what is happening here.”

This is not only a security threat, he added, but also one “to Israeli sovereignty itself.”

“The majority of the Bedouin population is law-abiding and interested in a normal life,” he said, but “extremist elements are taking advantage of the government vacuum and deepening the connection between the Negev and Gaza and Judea and Samaria.”

The four-year-old Rifman Institute’s aims include economic development of the Negev and the betterment of the 130,000-strong Bedouin community scattered throughout the region through collaborative efforts, while halting illegal activities that threaten these aims.

For dealing with arms smuggling, the Institute suggested a three-part plan: using intelligence to temporarily remove weapons from the Negev through searches and detentions, fully closing the Egyptian border, and stopping the theft of weapons from IDF bases.