Chiara Polverini | 30 August 2024

Summary

• The governance of far-right and religious settlers in Israel loosened the firearm licence regulation and determined a sharp rise in applications since its office in 2022.

• In 2023 there was a surge of armed assaults in the West Bank by nearly 200% and settler attacks by over 60%. A further ease of gun law from 7th October, resulted in an uncontrolled flow of weapons to squads of violent settlers for self-defence.

• Due to the inefficacy of the Palestinian Authority, the resurgence of Palestinian armed groups and the expansion of illegal settlements and outposts in the West Bank, the provision of weapons to radicalised settlers brings even more violence and insecurity.

In 2022, the Israeli Ministry for National Security Itamar Ben Gvir came into office with the promise to increase gun licences from 2000 to 10000 a month and to reduce the waiting time from an average of seven months to two and a half months. In the same year, the eligibility requirements shifted from the minimum age of 27 to 21, with the condition of completing one or two years of national or military service. Consequently, more civilians became eligible to own private weapons and the applications surged from an average of 13,000 per year until 2021, to over 42,000.

Following the outbreak of violence in October 2023, the Firearm Licensing Department launched an emergency operation to assist civilians who wish to obtain a firearm licence and weapons for self-defence. The ease of regulation included having a phone interview instead of in-person, bypassing the renewal process for people who already qualified for the licence in 2023, and authorised permission to buy 100 bullets instead of 50. The Department underwent internal changes where national service volunteers were allowed to issue firearms licences after only one day of training. From October 2023 to March 2024, there have been 299,354 applicants with over 100,000 authorised and the number is growing at a pace of 500 applicants per day. Israeli media and the security forces are on high alert, as in numerous cases neither the issuer nor the demander completely fit the criteria for the licence.

Right after October 7, the heads of Regional Councils in Judea and Samaria in the Occupied Territories and the Israeli Ministry of Defense established 800 emergency squads (in Hebrew, “kitot konnenut”) and personally purchased and distributed over 10,000 rifles to those groups in the West Bank. The kitot konnenut are armed groups of mainly civilian and reservist settlers who voluntarily defend the community in case of sudden attacks and respond to the Israeli security forces (ISF). ACLED reported a rise in violence perpetrated by settlers since October 7, with a two-fold increase in political violence involving settlers, and a seven times increase in settler violence involving firearms. Due to its loose structure, and the suspected ideological motivations behind such violence, the Central Command increasingly lost the hold over such squads.

It has been problematic to establish in which situation those armed settlers are called to intervene, to select the individuals who can participate in the operations, and especially to determine the weapons they possess (besides the M16 short rifle which is conventionally given to all volunteers in Israel). Human Rights watchdogs and Israeli media also reported that on several occasions the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) actively endorsed structural and direct violence. Far from being exhaustive, this includes physical harassment, arbitrary detention, forced displacement, damage to private property and livelihood, imposition of curfew, severe restriction of movement and services and prevention to access humanitarian aid. The security infrastructure in the West Bank reached a deadlock. This self-made security combined with a long-standing history of unlawfulness, worsened the situation in terms of human rights abuses toward Palestinians and has therefore caused more insecurity.

Forecast

• Short-term

  • Institutionalised security forces efforts are directed toward the conflict in Gaza and hostilities with neighbouring countries. In the context of the security vacuum in the West Bank, Israeli settlers will likely continue to take personal responsibility for securing the settlements which may come at the expense of neighbouring Palestinian communities. The growing availability of weapons and the support from the IDF encourages further privatisation of security and therefore abuses of power.

• Medium-term

  • The Knesset National Security Committee approved the permanent ease of firearm regulations. As such, the security measures introduced after October 7 will still be effective once a ceasefire is achieved and the security emergency is over. As most civilian gun licence holders and applicants reside in settlements, the emergency squads in the West Bank are likely to become well-established Israeli-Jewish militias with more independent power from the Central Command.

• Long-term

  • The security framework in the West Bank has now suffered for decades of chronic mismanagement and corruption by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and by the Palestinian security services (PSS) who both share security responsibilities with Israel and respond to the IDF. Overall, this complex network became an agent for Israeli expansion and protection of illegal settlements and outposts, and on several occasions, the PSS worked for the repression of Palestinian protests. This framework is very unlikely to alter. However, as a change of government in 2022 determined the trend of political violence toward Palestinians in the West Bank, a less radicalised coalition in the Knesset can likely extend more control over the settlers. Nevertheless, tangible results depend also on the willingness of the European Union (EU) and the United States to re-think targeted sanctions.