Israelis arm themselves in wake of Hamas attack

Israeli civilians have taken to arming themselves in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack, with some sporting large guns everywhere from the market to date night.

Recent photos from throughout the country show everyday people toting assault rifles and handguns at shopping malls, while crossing the street, and in parks.

In the nearly two months since Hamas slaughtered about 1,200 people in southern Israel, the country’s National Security Ministry has received about 255,000 gun license applications – 20,000 of which have been approved, Haaretz reported. 

Just three days after the attack, the demand for gun licenses was so high that the ministry had to allocate 60 additional staffers to process all the requests, the outlet noted.

“I have six children, and after the incident of the seventh of October, I understood that I must protect myself. The nights are very frightening, and so I wanted to get a license for a gun, to be safe, to protect my children,” Shimrit Ben Arosh, who lives in an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, said of her desire to carry a weapon.

The armed civilian push is spearheaded by Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, who, on Oct. 9, launched what he called an “emergency operation to enable as many civilians as possible to arm themselves,” the Guardian reported.

Under the emergency move, Ben Gvir decreed that any eligible Israeli citizen could go through a telephone interview as opposed to an in-person talk and be granted a firearms license within a week.

Within one month of the Israel-Hamas war, the Israeli government also announced the creation of 700 volunteer security squads throughout the country – with priority given to border areas and “mixed cities” with Israeli and Palestinian populations, a ministry statement read.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed Ben Gvir’s policy at a press conference last week, saying “the presence of armed civilians many times saved the day and prevented a bigger disaster.”

When pressed about the death of Yuval Castleman – an Israeli civilian who was shot dead by an IDF reservist who mistook him for a terrorist at the scene of a Hamas attack in Jerusalem – and whether an armed population could mean more accidental killings, Netanyahu shrugged off concerns.

“It could be that we will pay a price for it. That’s life,” the 74-year-old prime minister said.

Tensions in the West Bank are running high since Israel launched its retaliatory offensive on the Gaza Strip: Over the weekend, settlers allegedly attacked two Palestinian villages and killed a 38-year-old man.

“There’s no one to defend us… Our movement is so restricted, we’re constantly living in fear that if we leave our house, we’ll be shot,” Abdelathim Wadi, who lives in Qusra, south of Nablus, told CNN.

Meanwhile, Israelis “feel that they have been neglected by the military and the government and the instinct is to demand weapons,” Guy Ben-Porat, a politics professor at Israelis; Ben Gurion University, told CNN.

Ben Gvir, Ben-Porat suggested, is “exploiting” that post-terror attack vulnerability.

“There’s a gun culture because people are insecure, so they buy guns, and every local feud can turn into a gun battle,” he warned.

On Monday, Yisrael Avisar, the head of the National Security’s Ministry Firearm Licensing Department, resigned after clashing with Ben Gvir on the outpouring of fast-tracked gun licenses, the Times of Israel reported.

The move came just a few days after Avisar told the Knesset that members of Ben Gvir’s team had approved gun licenses without proper authority, according to Haaretz.

An initial review of the proceedings showed that permits had also been granted to individuals who did not meet the relevant criteria, the outlet explained.

“This behavior is a recipe for disaster. They’re handing out guns like candy. A gun permit isn’t a children’s game. There’s almost no oversight in the ministry,” one senior security official told Haaretz. 

“A weapon saves lives, and [Ben Gvir’s] policy is being expanded and not reduced,” the National Security Ministry said in response to the criticism, per the Times of Israel.

Ben Gvir, 47, was already a controversial figure before he became national security minister last year.

As an acolyte of rabbi Meri Kahane’s Kach party – which was branded a terrorist group by the United States – the father of five was previously convicted of inciting anti-Arab racism and affiliation with a terrorist group.

He famously removed a photograph of Baruch Goldstein – an Israeli-American who gunned down 29 Palestinians in a mosque in 1994 – from his living room wall before entering politics. 

His popularity in the polls, however, made him a cornerstone of Netanyahu’s comeback last fall, experts said.

“He is a populist demagogue. He plays on the sentiments of hate and fear of Arabs,” said Shuki Friedman of the Jewish People Policy Institute.

“He interviews well, he is good on camera and he has had plenty of screen time that has given him legitimacy.”

With Post wires