Report: Israelis Rush for Guns in the West Bank’s Samaria Region

Israelis in the West Bank’s Samaria region are lining up for gun licenses, seeking to arm themselves for the defense of their own lives, their region, and Israel itself.

The Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) reported the rural location of Samaria meant there were no sirens or alerts to let them know Hamas’ attacks had begun over the weekend. Rather, they learned when “news…spread person-to-person as fathers of young children received orders from the army and grandmothers were called to childcare duty.”

The things they heard person-to-person were further confirmed when Home Front Command cleared synagogue and Samaria’s streets grew quiet, except for the sound of security patrols.

While armed residents volunteered to guard important streets and bi-ways, unarmed residents flooded into offices to fill out the paperwork necessary to secure a gun license.

JNS noted, “The local Maccabi health clinic was teeming with crowds scrambling for health applications for gun permits. It was tense but congenial as doctors scrambled to fill out forms.” There was also a line at the Town Hall, as those seeking gun licenses went through the process to show proof of residency.

Igal Lahav, Mayor of Samaria, observed, “We are in emergency times, so people are responding. The idea is that people should take responsibility for the situation. People need to protect themselves, so we don’t have a situation like they had in the south. We encourage them to buy guns and are helping them with registration, but nobody needs to panic.”

After Hamas’ attacks began on Israel over the weekend, Breitbart News observed that private gun ownership among Israelis was low, as Israel lacks the Second Amendment protections in place in America.

The BBC reported  “Israeli gun ownership is low at about 2% of the population.” In contrast, the findings of a recent study by Rutgers University’s New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center estimated upwards of six in ten Americans own guns.

Israeli leaders focused on expediting gun licenses, following January 2023 attacks on Israel. But following the launch of the Hamas offensive, commentators suggested Israeli leaders would go further than expediting licenses this time; that they would broaden the types of weapons Israelis can own privately for defense of themselves and the nation.

On October 10, 2023, Breitbart News pointed out Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir announced 10,000 assault rifles were being purchased and distributed to civilian security teams in communities along the country’s borders.

Ben Gvir has been criticized as an “extremist” in the past but he was elected in 2022 when he took a stand in favor of arming more Israelis–creating an armed “national guard”–in response to rioting by Israeli Arabs against Israeli Jews.

On August 10, 2023, the Times of Israel noted Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stood against Ben Gvir’s “national guard,” calling it a “private militia.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.