Weapons of the West Bank resistance: Where do they come from?
On 22 April, Israeli occupation authorities apprehended Jordanian parliamentarian Imad al-Adwan at the Allenby Bridge crossing. But this was no ordinary arrest. Adwan was caught attempting to smuggle an astonishing cache of over 200 guns and bags of gold into the occupied-Palestinian West Bank.
Adwan’s audacious actions have reignited Israel’s long-held fears that Palestinian resistance factions in the West Bank could acquire a significant arsenal of firearms from across the border with Jordan. Yet the notion of such a daring endeavor is implausible and fraught with risks.
The resistance is more likely to simply purchase black market arms from sources within 1948-occupied Palestine (Israel), especially given its greater access to funds from supporters in the Iran-led Axis of Resistance. The Iranian leadership has previously vowed to arm West Bank resistance factions, just as they have done for their Gaza-based counterparts.
MP Adwan, who is a member of the Jordanian parliament’s Palestine committee and has previously spoken out against Israel’s routine aggression against Palestinians and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is no stranger to Israeli intelligence.
The Shin Bet said that since February 2022, Adwan had used his diplomatic passport 12 times to smuggle various goods, including “birds, pigeons, electronic cigarettes and gold,” and in 2023, had begun smuggling weapons “out of greed and received large sums of money.”
Local vs. smuggled weapons
A researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Public Relations retired General Yossi Kuperwasser, confirmed that this is not the first time that Adwan has transferred weapons to the occupied West Bank.
Kuperwasser hinted that Adwan’s arrest was based on intelligence information from the Jordanian side and that the Jordanian authorities did not arrest him, so as to avoid arousing the anger of Adwan’s clan, who have since hailed him as a “brave patriot.”
According to Yedioth Ahronoth journalist Jackie Khoji, the members of this clan are spread out on “the borders with Israel, and they can turn this region into a hotspot.”
Over the past two years alone, Israeli border guards have intercepted 1,600 weaponsdestined for the occupied Palestinian territories, all originating from Jordan. Despite the strenuous efforts of both Israeli and Jordanian security forces to fortify their borders, the weapons continued to flow, leaving them grappling with unanswered questions: Where were these weapons originating from? Who were the intended recipients? What were they to be used for? And how much did they cost?
Israeli security and military services are aware that some of the weapons entering the West Bank end up in the hands of clans or organized criminal gangs among Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. However, most concerning are the weapons that end up in the arsenal of the resistance factions.
This has prompted the Israeli army to carry out numerous recent military operations in the Aqabat Jabr camp in the east of the West Bank, to arrest wanted persons, confiscate weapons, and dismantle bomb-making laboratories and resistance infrastructure.
In a report by Arab News last year, Ismat Mansour, a writer on Israeli affairs, claimed that the smuggled weapons mostly go to families for use in internal conflicts, in addition to the armed militias of some sections of the Fatah movement in preparation for the time when Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas finally steps down:
“These weapons are mostly light and the Palestinians do not use them in their attacks against the Israelis as they use locally manufactured weapons such as ‘Carlo’ and ‘M16’ rifles coming from Israel through weapons dealers.”
Escalating Palestinian operations in the West Bank
In past years, arms smuggling to the occupied West Bank has increased from Iraq and Syria via Jordan, as well as across the Lebanese borders and from the occupied Palestinian territories.
According to the Israeli Walla! news site: “The Syrian border is witnessing a concentration of smuggling of Soviet weapons such as the Kalashnikov, while the Jordanian border is being used to smuggle western and American weapons. This phenomenon is growing. Ronen Calvon, commander of the [Israeli] defense unit in the southern region, warned that we are facing a strategic threat that requires joint action from all the state’s security and military agencies.”
“The huge stockpile of firearms in Judea and Samaria is intolerable.” This is how Lilac Shoval, a military correspondent for the Israel Hayom newspaper, described the situation in the occupied West Bank. Because some of these weapons are used to launch attacks against settlers and occupation soldiers, the Israeli army is making plans to “clean up” some cities and camps in the northern West Bank.
The Kan radio station also quoted “senior officials in the army and the Shin Bet as saying that there is no choice. The army is about to carry out a large-scale operation in the northern West Bank.”
“Despite the army’s intelligence activity and the increase in arrests and assassinations, the pace of Palestinian operations in the northern West Bank continues to increase,” said Elior Halevy, military affairs analyst for Kan.
Evolving resistance tactics
The Israelis are aware that significant changes have taken place in the West Bank with far-reaching implications. Palestinian Authority (PA) control over cities and camps has weakened, and the economic situation has deteriorated, while the control of the Zionist religious right over the Israeli government, and the number of settlers, who have become more aggressive, have increased.
Facing this grim reality, throwing stones or Molotov cocktails is no longer an ideal resistance tactic, and knives are no longer the main tool for carrying out operations against the occupation. This new Palestinian generation has moved on to acquiring and using weapons despite their exorbitant prices.
The use of firearms to carry out attacks against the occupation soldiers and illegal settlers has impacted the army’s performance. Almost every raid against any of the West Bank cities is now accompanied by an armed clash with the resistance fighters in response.
According to figures from the Shin Bet, 2022 witnessed an increase in the number of attacks compared to 2021. Despite Operation Breakwater, which was carried out by the army and the Shin Bet security service last year to thwart resistance attacks, Elisha Ben Kimon indicated in the Yedioth Ahronothnewspaper that “1,570 operations took place in the West Bank in 2021, in which 18 settlers were killed and 196 others injured, compared to 1933 attacks in 2022, which killed 29 soldiers and settlers and wounded about 128 others.”
The increase in Israeli casualties is due to the development of the type of weapons used: from stabbing with knives and run-over operations with cars during the “knives intifada” in 2015, to automatic weapons today.
Rising prices
Yedioth Ahronoth reported late last year that the Israeli security services do not have accurate information about the number of rifles and weapons in the West Bank. It added that years of “calm and economic privileges” had allowed a large number of Palestinians from various regions of the West Bank to obtain personal weapons, including pistols, M16 and Kalashnikov rifles, and even Israeli-made Tavor rifles.
It pointed out that most of the “weapons, with the exception of the northern regions of the West Bank, Nablus, and Jenin, are not directed against Israelis and settlers at present, and are used in local disputes.”
The Israeli army’s measures to control arms smuggling have led to a massive increase in prices compared to those in neighboring countries. The price of the original M4 rifle is about $30,000 (between $4,500 and $6,000 in Lebanon), and the Kalashnikov assault rifle (AK47) is $20,000 (less than $750 in Lebanon).
An old M16 rifle sells for about $16,000 (between $1,200 and $1,600 in Lebanon), and the fourth and fifth generations of Glock pistols cost $15,000 (roughly $2,000 in the US and Europe), while the demand for the locally-manufactured Carlo rifle is less due to its many faults.
The high profits generated by this trade (upwards of 700 percent) leads to an increase in attempts to smuggle weapons. However, it is important to note that the majority of arms dealers buy weapons from the Israeli black market through organized theft of weapons and ammunition from army bases.
Arming the Resistance
However, smuggling weapons to the West Bank and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories is not a purely commercial affair. In 2014, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ali Khamenei, called for the arming of the West Bank “as the only solution to confront this brutal entity,” suggesting a strong will to transfer weapons to the West Bank.
In this context, the northern front with Lebanon is witnessing large-scale arms transfers, in terms of quantity or high quality, in preparation for the “zero hour.” According to a report last year by Israeli Channel 12, Israeli police concluded that Hezbollah had decided, after the Dignity Strike in the occupied territories in 2021, to flood Israel with light weapons, such as pistols and machine guns, in preparation for the moment of confrontation.
The channel revealed that the anti-terrorism unit of the Israeli police, Yamar, has since monitored an increase in attempts to smuggle weapons from Jordan and Lebanon. Yaron Ben Yishai of the intelligence department in the Yamar unit in the Northern Command said, “Hezbollah directs 95 percent of the smuggling operations through Lebanon.”
Where there’s a will, there’s a way
Likewise, the means of smuggling weapons have become increasingly sophisticated. Last February, Jordanian border guards shot down a drone that tried to cross the border with Syria, in which an “M4 rifle and 4 bombs were found. The drone was booby-trapped to explode if caught.”
Although Israel has failed to stop the smuggling of arms to the resistance factions in the West Bank, it has succeeded in restricting transportation routes, which in turn has caused a significant increase in prices.
This led to the adoption of different methods, such as the provision of finances to buy weapons domestically from arms dealers. This is the Israeli explanation for the large amount of gold confiscated from the Jordanian MP.
Similarly, the PA authorities arrested Musab Shtayyeh in Nablus in September 2022 on charges of transferring funds from Hamas to the Lions’ Den resistance group. At the beginning of this month, the Israeli army arrested a person under the pretext of transferring money from Hamas to resistance fighters in Jenin.
As a result, Israel has tightened its siege on the West Bank in a desperate attempt to stifle the growth of military capabilities within the resistance factions. However, these factions, determined and resourceful, continue to evolve in their tactics to ensure a steady supply of weapons.
The prevailing trajectory seems to be leading Israel towards a pivotal crossroads, one that may necessitate a “final solution” in the form of a large-scale military campaign in the northern West Bank. Such a drastic move would undoubtedly carry severe consequences for the Israeli army, raising the stakes to an alarming level, as the occupation state now faces threats from multiple fronts.
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