The IDF and Israel Police have thwarted the smuggling of 13 weapons in the Arava region of southern Israel following an undercover investigation that took place in recent months.
During the night, military observers in cooperation with a Magen unit of the Israel Police’s Southern District identified two suspects who attempted to smuggle weapons from Jordan into the area of the Yoav Regional Brigade (80th Division).
Troops from the division’s Caracal Battalion accompanied by Israel Police officers and helicopters rushed to the spot near Neot HaKikar and arrested the two suspects who were carrying out the smuggling at the border and one suspect involved in planning it who was nearby.
Forces also confiscated three bags containing five M16 rifles, seven pistols and a Kalashnikov weapon.
The suspects all residents of the Dimona area in their 20s and 30s were transferred for further investigation by the Israel Police’s Magen Unit.
“The Israel Police and the IDF will continue to work to maintain the security of the State of Israel and to prevent the smuggling of drugs and weapons, which promotes crime in the Negev and terror attacks in Judea and Samaria to harm civilians,” the police said in a statement.
According to Chief Superintendent Ronen Kalfon, commander of the Magen unit, over 140 weapons have been seized since the beginning of the year.
“The Israel Police and the IDF will continue to work to maintain the security of the State of Israel and to prevent the smuggling of drugs and weapons, which promotes crime in the Negev and terror attacks in Judea and Samaria to harm civilians.”
Israel Police
“We are in the midst of an ongoing struggle against the plague of illegal weapons,” he said, adding that “as part of the combining of police forces with the IDF brigades spread across the Arava and the Jordan Valley, each of which brings its own unique advantages, this is the seventh smuggling attempt we thwarted this year.”
What happened before
Last year the IDF along with the Israel Police launched the Magen HaNegev program to crack down on lawlessness and drug and weapons smuggling in the country’s South.
According to those security forces, while crimes such as weapons and drug smuggling have been rampant in the Negev for decades, they have only recently begun to view it as a risk to national security, due in part to the surge in violence committed during smuggling attempts and weapons thefts from IDF bases.
In March security forces thwarted the smuggling of 37 weapons and ecstasy tablets worth NIS 2.3 million. The police said that the weapons were set to be delivered to Palestinians in the area of Hebron in the West Bank or criminal elements in the south.
Maj. Shira Kohavi, Deputy Commander of the Bardelas Battalion told The Jerusalem Post at the time that it “was the largest smuggling attempt in the Arava in a long time. We don’t see this every day.”