Ilan Dagon hesitates, but in the end he decides on the known: a 9-millimeter Glock, the most popular pistol in Israel. It is worth 4,000 shekels, about 1,000 euros, including mandatory training and permit management. Dagon, a bus driver, said he had barely wielded a weapon since joining an Israeli army combat unit three decades ago. Now 51, he wants one because he just took on a bus route in Gush Etsion, the same large Jewish settlement bloc south of Bethlehem where he buys it, at the Caliber 3 Counterterrorism, Security and Defense Academy. "I hadn't felt the need because I didn't need it at work. But now, with all the attacks that there are, that they get on the bus Arabs whose face does not ring a bell, that I have a responsibility towards the passengers and that it is easier to get it ... I thought it was time," he explains in the center's armory, while other Israeli civilians, members of the security forces and tourists steeped in gun culture (mainly Americans) test their aim a few meters away.
His case is paradigmatic. After two decades of decline, the number of gun licenses for civilians has been increasing in Israel in recent years, in the heat of the spikes of violence – which usually trigger petitions – and legal changes that make it easier to obtain them. Both dynamics are usually, in fact, linked. Now, Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right Minister of National Security, where the department that grants the licenses is framed, has decided to give an acceleration, with more means and more lax criteria to obtain the license.
Ben Gvir, who also has a gun (he lives in a well-known settlement of religious nationalism) and took it out on the campaign trail in one of the most explosive Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem, exemplified last February in two consecutive attacks the need for legal change. In the first attack, he said, "there was no armed civilian and, unfortunately, seven holy Jews were massacred," while in the second "fortunately a civilian opened fire with his personal weapon and quickly neutralized the terrorist." He has repeated it since then every time someone kills the attacker before security forces arrive. The latest was when a member of the settlement's civilian patrol shot dead one of Hamas' militants who had just opened fire in a restaurant at the foot of Eli's settlement.
Pistols displayed for a customer at the Caliber armory 3.QUIQUE KIERSZENBAUM
The minister, one of the most controversial of the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu, which celebrates half a year in power, already put in February the licensing department in emergency mode, with double the staff and extended hours, to resolve the files that accumulate since last year. In the four months following the announcement, 11,393 licenses were granted, 280% more than in the same period of 2022. The goal is to go from 2,000 monthly interviews (they are mandatory) to 8,000.
Some 150,000 Israeli civilians (1.6 per cent of the population) have weapons permits. One part for own use, others for their work. To obtain it, it is necessary to have at least three years in Israel, have no criminal record, speak basic Hebrew, pass a brief interview and a medical examination, and be at least 21 years old, if you have done military or civilian service; or 27, if not. And meet at least one of three criteria.
The first is to live or work in a list of localities considered dangerous, which are mainly Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Another, having served in certain special units of the army. And a third isto practice professions such as nurse and firefighter (who are usually among the first to arrive at the scene of an attack), tour guides, shooting instructors, transporters of valuables or explosives, etc.
"There are about 500,000 potentials who, if they wanted to, would have a gun tomorrow. And they didn't want to. Suddenly, a part of them, because of the situation and because they see that a weapon is really effective and that civilians kill terrorists, are getting their license," explains Caliber 3 founder and manager Sharon Gat, a colonel in the reserves.
This is the case of Itai Nizhor, a 27-year-old construction worker who chooses a Czech CZ pistol of 3,200 shekels. "The situation is much more tense, it shows," he argues. Nizhor lives in Jerusalem and sees it as "preferable" to have the ability to open fire in the event of an attack than to "wait for soldiers or policemen to arrive."
Ben Gold, a 46-year-old border police volunteer, comes twice a week to train at the centre. He recounts with fascination the day he killed a Palestinian, in a mixture of the normalization of weapons in his native Tennessee – where he learned to shoot at the age of six – and a speech (more common outside than inside Israel) of vindication of a "new Jew", strong and armed, who no longer wears "the yellow star on his lapel". Gold says he stopped the car when he saw him walking down the street in a suspicious coat and questioned him from a distance. He threw a knife at her and ran off onto a bus, she says. Gold shot him and then finished him off on the ground. "While you're thinking about whether or not he can do something, you have to ensure he can't. And the only way to do that is to turn off the lights. He wanted to kill a Jew [...]. For me it's never again a slogan on a sticker," he says, before complaining that his gun permit was suspended for months.
One gun and 50 bullets
What Nizhor and Gold can buy is highly regulated: a pistol and 50 bullets. The permit, in fact, is not for a type of weapon, but for a specific copy and is associated with the serial number. They are not the automatic rifles that can be seen on the street in Israel and usually surprise tourists. Those belong to the Army or the Police and those who carry them are either soldiers of liberation, volunteers or alert platoons to those who provide them.
Last month, Ben Gvir pushed for a change in the criteria for obtaining the small arms permit that would extend the possibility to another 50,000 Israelis. The proposal, pending approval by the parliamentary Security Committee, is to increase the number of eligible combat units and include volunteers – and not just employees – from organisations such as the local equivalent of the Red Cross. "Making the criteria more accessible is one of my main goals at the Ministry of National Security. There is no reason why tankers and engineers, who were on the front lines of combat with the ground forces, cannot own a weapon, as well as many other soldiers who to this day remain absurdly unfit the criteria," he tweeted. It also seeks to exempt from the interview any soldier in a combat unit who has hung up their weapons in the previous five years, as well as active duty reservists, police and firefighters.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, upon his arrival at the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers, last April in Jerusalem. RONEN ZVULUN (AFP)
Another change takes direct aim at its audience. The Israeli army offers a program, aimed at religious nationalists (spearhead of the most radical settler movement) and the ultra-Orthodox closest to it, which allows combining a shorter military service with the study of sacred texts. As it does not fall into the category of "full" established by law (32 months for men, 24 for women), its members are forced to wait until the age of 27 to obtain the license. The minister now wants to grant them the right if they live, work or study in any of the "dangerous" localities, a priori the vast majority.
Debbie Gild-Hayo, director of Policy Advocacy and dossier manager at the Israel Civil Rights Association, the country's largest and dean, is concerned about the proposal. "The more weapons there are in public space, the more people are harmed," he sums up in a telephone conversation. Gild-Hayo criticizes the "culture of distrust in the security forces, that you have to take justice on your own because they cannot do their job." And he stresses that another major problem (the huge amount of illegal weapons in Israel) comes not only from smuggling from neighboring countries or from robberies in barracks, but also from theft (or undercover sales) of legal weapons in the hands of private individuals. "Hundreds of guns that are illegal today were legal at the time," he recalls.
Human rights NGOs have also expressed concern about the possible influence on gender-based violence. According to data from the feminist organization Women's Lobby, a third of Israeli women killed in 2021 were killed by legal firearms. A legal change five years ago allowed members of some collectives to take them home, instead of leaving them in custody in the workplace. "It's not just how many more can be injured because there are more weapons, it's also that the mere presence in the house is threatening to the woman," he stresses.
Sharon Gat practices at her academy's special shooting range. QUIQUE KIERSZENBAUM
Since the number of Israelis eligible for the license tripled in 2018, two elements have contributed to the increase. One was May 2021, when one of the usual escalations of tension transcended the occupied territories and degenerated into riots and clashes between Jews and Palestinians – all Israeli citizens – in localities with mixed populations. "It's the point where it started to rise strongly, because people from places with Yaffo, Lod or Acre, where they felt completely safe, suddenly understood that the enemy is inside," says Gat. "Until then the profile was rather men with a military past. Women and from places like Tel Aviv started arriving too." The director of the licensing department, Israel Avisar, told a parliamentary committee last February that they used to process about 10,000 petitions a year until 2021, when they went to 20,000. The particularly violent 2022 marked the record for applications: 42,236.
The other has been the entry on the scene of the ultra-Orthodox, who usually maintain a life centered on the family and the study of sacred texts that marries badly with the culture of weapons. A decade ago, they weren't seen in Caliber 3; Today, yes. The manager says he has managed 200% more licenses for residents of nearby Beitar Ilit, the largest ultra-Orthodox settlement in the West Bank, since last January's attack on a synagogue in Neve Yaakov, a settlement near Jerusalem that is mostly ultra-Orthodox. It has been the deadliest of the year, with seven dead: "These are people who in their lives had thought about getting a gun, but saw that the police took 20 minutes to arrive."
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