Deputy Minister of Internal Security Yoav Segalovich will present tomorrow (Sunday) in the Internal Security Committee the products of the "Safe Track" activity, the emergency plan he has been leading for the past six months.
Israel Today has learned that in light of police pressure, criminal organizations in the Arab sector are stepping up attempts to smuggle weapons and ammunition into the country from various Arab countries through land borders.
200 will be prosecuted: seized weapons, photo: police spokeswoman
At the end of the week, the number of targets in Operation "Safe Track" to deal with crime on the Arab street rose to 631 criminals.
The targeted treatment includes, among other things, spot searches, arrests and joint investigations between the police, the tax authority and other government ministries.
Since the operation began in October 2021, 87% of its targets have been dealt with and about 200 of them have already been charged and prosecuted, 166 have been arrested until the end of the proceedings, NIS 130 million was confiscated only as part of the operation against senior members of Arab society.
About 30 of the accused in the operation come from criminal organizations in Arab society.
Seized weapons, archive, Photo: Michael Giladi-Ginny
Since the beginning of 2022, there has been a 375% increase in the number of weapons seized in smuggling attempts: 228 weapons were seized in six smuggling attempts in 2022 compared to 48 weapons in 3 smuggling attempts in the corresponding period in 2021.
The police claim that "this is a sharp increase in the number of firearms seized at the borders and in coordinated intelligence work, and completely between the IDF and GSS police who joined forces to fight attempts by various elements to infiltrate more and more firearms into Israel."
The number of arrests in the field of weapons offenses also increased by 58% from 295 last year to 387 in 2022.
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