Terrified after a bloody attack by Hamas on a settlement in the south of the country, in which more than 1,400 people died, and worried about the slow response of the army, Israelis are now arming themselves in record numbers with the blessing of the government, writes Reuters on Thursday, citing Agerpres.

“I have six children and after what happened on October 7, I realized that I need to protect myself. The nights are very scary, so I wanted to get a gun permit to be safe, to protect my children,” said a mother from an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, Shimrit Ben Arosh, who, after the Hamas attack, went to the shooting range in Kfar- Saba for learning to shoot weapons.

Gun shops and shooting ranges are working overtime to handle the surge in demand, and the new customers include some former gun control advocates.

According to TV Channel 13, 150,000 requests for gun permits were registered after October 7, compared to only 42 during the same period last year. The sale of firearms in Israel is severely restricted, and civilian firearms are not easy to obtain. Application approval can sometimes take months.

Some of those who survived the attack attributed their survival to the weapons they had on hand, which they said they used to defend their homes until security forces arrived — often hours late.

Gun permits now take just a few days

Homeland Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right extremist, has described private gun ownership as a precaution against a repeat of the internal clashes between Israel’s Arab minority and the Jewish majority that accompanied the previous war in Gaza in 2021.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel is waging an all-out war against Hamas. This includes “encouraging civilians and helping them arm themselves for self-defense,” he said in a televised address on Wednesday.

While it used to take months to process gun permit applications (usually for handguns, not rifles), they can now be obtained online in just a few days. Previously, the qualifications were mainly passed by veterans of combat units or residents of front-line settlements. Now one year of military service may be enough, the Ministry of Internal Affairs says.

Arab citizens of Israel, many of whom identify as Palestinians, are usually exempt from mandatory military service and cannot obtain a permit.

A warning to gun control advocates

Until Oct. 7, the Kfar Saba shooting range held just one training course a day, but now runs three to four and is hiring new instructors to keep up with demand.

But gun control advocates say that firearms that are too readily available increase the risk of accidental shootings, murders and suicides.

“An unprepared response to a subjective perception of danger is likely to lead to the needless death of the innocent,” warned the Israeli activist group Gun on the Kitchen Table.

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